No. 111

POST ELECTION DEMONSTRATION IN LOS ANGELES, CA | NOVEMBER 2017. PHOTO BY ALEX RADELICH Teaching and Resistance in the Time of Trumpism ISSN: 1941-0832

Introduction: Teaching and Resistance in the Time of Trumpism

by Sarah Chinn and Joseph Entin

DEMONSTRATION IN LOS ANGELES, CA | NOVEMBER 2017. PHOTO BY ALEX RADELICH

RADICAL TEACHER 1 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.530

he 2016 election of Donald Trump did not bring with Teacher to determine that we needed an issue that would it anything that sounded new, but it did turn the address how these changes are affecting, and being T volume knob all the way up. As part of a backlash resisted in, education. But our goals and methods were still against the measured neoliberalism of the Obama era, inchoate. In devising this issue, we debated whether or not Trumpism has been defined by an emboldened white to use #45’s name in framing the contemporary moment. supremacy; brazen sexism; a belligerent foreign policy Moreover, we asked ourselves, how much of a rupture posture; an ever-more punitive stance on “law and order”; does Trump’s election represent? Do we want to put stress openly racist, xenophobic immigration and border policies; on the break his proto-fascist policies represent, or the denial of scientifically-proven climate change; a emphasize the continuities with long-standing traditions in hypertrophied “business” approach to social problems; an US social and political culture? What is at stake in referring assault on truth in favor of “alternative facts” and outright to the present conjuncture as the “Age of Trumpism”? lies; the elevation of hate and bigotry in public discourse There was disagreement on the editorial board of RT about and attitude; and more. Most recently, it has resulted in the right approach to this urgent topic and how we should outright cruelty, as children -- from babies to teenagers – identify the kinds of work we were looking for. Fellow have been forcibly removed from their families as they board member Richard Ohmann raised two objections to cross the US border. While many liberals were shocked by the overarching rubric of “Trumpism”: the election results, radicals were hardly surprised by the First, I take the dynamics of this period to be largely Alt-Right, authoritarian forces, and sharply regressive ideas results of the neoliberal plot against America and that carried Trump into office. Those forces and ideas have democracy, launched by wealthy right-wingers 50 deep historic roots and broad support. years ago (when Trump was just the worst college student in the history of the Wharton School, In education, the Trump according to one of his professors). From that point of administration has doubled down view, although the Republican president they got is on the trend towards neoliberal, what they deserved, he wasn't their chosen leader, and his clownish ways are not what they wanted. So I market-based, anti-public school think "age of Trumpism" embodies an interpretation of policies that have been gaining history that should be critically questioned, in radical momentum in recent decades. teaching.

Second, Trump(ism) can be too easy and tempting a Trump’s strategy, if one can call it that, has been to diversion for both students and teachers. The guy's staff cabinet posts with barely competent, if not actually wacky wickedness tends to sop up everyone's corrupt, business and military figures who have in the past attention, as the media have shown. been openly opposed to the mandate of that office (for example, Scott Pruitt in the EPA, Nikki Haley at the UN, We agree with the cautionary note Ohmann sounds, Ben Carson at HUD). In education, the Trump but also want to signal that Trump’s election does administration has doubled down on the trend towards represent something new, or at least a newly dramatic neoliberal, market-based, anti-public school policies that intensification: a heightening of the reactionary rhetoric have been gaining momentum in recent decades. His and policies against vulnerable populations and social education secretary, Betsy DeVos, is well versed in the justice movements. This rhetoric and these politics have privatization of public agencies: a billionaire who never been increasingly hegemonic under post-1970 attended a public school, she is the sister of the founder of neoliberalism, and in fact have always been integral to the Blackwater, the shadowy security firm that has served as a US as a racist, capitalist, sexist, settler-colonial society. To private extension of the US military in strategic locations put it bluntly, Trump is a symptom rather than a cause. Yet around the world. No wonder she has proposed devastating we think it is important to honor the new, justifiable fears funding cuts ($7.1 Billion, over 10% of the DOE budget, in raised by Trump’s openly racist campaign as well as his 2019) to the very agency she runs. Such cuts would be near-total absence of concern about media and public accompanied by an infusion of federal money to support critique—his disparagement of immigrants from “shithole school “choice” vouchers for students to leave public countries”; the equivalence he drew between white schools for charters and private institutions. In higher supremacist violence and non-violent anti-racist protestors education, DeVos has supported loan policies that smooth in Charlottesville, VA in August 2017; his avowedly the way for the ongoing scandal of for-profit colleges Islamophobic remarks and immigration bans; his which, as even as liberal-centrist an organ as The New xenophobic description, proclaimed during the news York Times editorial board has argued, “has saddled conference announcing his run for the presidency, of working-class students with crushing debt while providing Mexican immigrants as “criminals and rapists”; his useless degrees, or no degrees at all.”1 As the Center for termination of DACA and suspension of Temporary American Progress puts it: “Trump and DeVos have made Protected Status for many Central Americans; the anti- their priorities clear: Starve public schools to fund private LGBTQ and especially anti-transgender policies and school schemes that benefit the wealthy.”2 administrators he has brought to Washington 3 ; his characterization of the mainstream media as “enemies of Given the dramatic ramping up of social inequity, the people”; his denial of the human causes of global political Know-Nothing-ism, and intensifying persecution of warming and undermining of federal climate change policy undocumented immigrants, it did not take long for Radical via the appointment of Scott Pruitt to head the EPA; his

RADICAL TEACHER 2 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.530 rupture of the données of foreign policy and diplomacy, to 2017 Women’s March on Washington (and affiliate marches name only some. around the country and the world) and nationwide demonstrations against the new administration’s bigoted There’s certainly nothing new about racism, which has immigration restrictions, among others. Left educators at been woven into the deepest and most pervasive all levels are active in the struggle, and have created structures of US culture even before the official founding of networks to share pedagogical and activist strategies (see the nation. Yet for those persons and communities targeted for instance: http://www.radicalteacher.net/trumpism/). by Trump’s rhetoric and policies—many of whom are students in our schools—these are especially frightening On the education front, 2018 has witnessed dramatic times. We use the term “Trumpism,” rather than Trump, to push back against austerity politics from public school de-emphasize the President himself, while acknowledging teachers, who conducted massive (in some cases wildcat) the particular, and to some extent unprecedented, alliance strikes in West Virginia, Oklahoma, Arizona, and Kentucky. of forces that have coalesced around his campaign and his To observers outside (and perhaps even inside) those administration to craft deeply regressive and authoritarian states, the eruption of collective action, in the form of policy initiatives. A radical analysis entails going to the root mass work stoppages, was surprising, but it represents a to understand the deep, historical and political structures rational response to years of cuts to public education, and that shape a particular moment, and our understanding of the “right to work” conditions that prevent teachers from Trump’s rise and power requires such systemic, long-term bargaining collectively. Oppression breeds resistance, and thinking. At the same time, the ascendance of the Trump the punishing cuts implemented under the veil of economic administration, and the policies and attitudes that it is austerity in recent years have generated righteous anger advancing, represent, as Noam Chomsky puts it bluntly, “a and a desire to fight among school teachers in these disaster” with its own particular contours.4 notably Red states.

So this is the balance we and the authors in this issue have tried to maintain: while much in this political moment As the essays in this issue is new, the continuities are crucial to acknowledge and indicate so powerfully, educators’ understand. On several fronts, Trump is merely continuing resistance to Trumpism, and to the policy directions set by the Obama administration, and much longer histories of injustice, indeed all the US presidents since at least Nixon, who have largely advanced a market-based, neoliberal agenda -- inequality, racism, and anti-student from specific visas for “high value” migrants, to the policies, is also taking a wide range development of an “invisible” undocumented workforce in of forms beyond the picket lines. the service industry, to social problems exacerbated by defunded public education and the racial economics of As the essays in this issue indicate so powerfully, mass incarceration. Trump may have declared his intention educators’ resistance to Trumpism, and to the much longer to build a border wall between the US and Mexico, but histories of injustice, inequality, racism, and anti-student Obama’s border policy was itself draconian: as “deporter in policies, is also taking a wide range of forms beyond the chief,” he expelled over 2 million immigrants. While Trump picket lines. Many of our authors chronicle their own sounds a muscular foreign policy tone, Obama sent 10 experiences in making classrooms spaces for students to times as many military drones around the world as George articulate the effects of the current political moment on 5 Bush. While Trump celebrates economic competition, and them, and to imagine creative responses. Jesse Schwartz the amassing of wealth in the hands of a few, George W. finds in his composition classroom at LaGuardia Community Bush bailed out the banks in the wake of the 2008 College -- one of the most ethnically and racially mixed recession and Obama continued that policy, without jailing educational institutions in the country -- students whose a single executive, and did virtually nothing to close the lived experiences of undocumented immigration, police racial wealth gap, or roll back the nation’s astounding harassment, and collective action give them the raw economic inequality, which was as severe at the end of his materials with which to craft their writing. To help his term as it ever had been. Trump may have taken the students channel their post-election feelings of anxiety and unprecedented step of moving the US embassy from Tel rage into action, Schwartz designed an assignment that Aviv to Jerusalem, but the move is merely an extension of asked students to link the critical writing and thinking they the unwaveringly pro-Israel, anti-Palestinian stance that all were doing to forms of activist engagement outside the recent administrations have held in lockstep. DeVos may classroom. Similarly, Emily Price and Susan Jurow discuss be an especially egregious head of the DOE, but the cynical how they helped the primarily Mexican-American children rationale behind her approach is of a piece with the in an after school program use play to express their fears competitive, market-derived model of education funding of about, and ways of coping with, the 2016 election and its Arne Duncan’s Obama-era “Race to the Top” and the Bush- aftermath. They show us that, if given the space, kids era focus on testing and “accountability” in “No Child Left engage in play to both act out and find possible solutions Behind.” to a political environment in which they have no power.

For many people, including the electoral majority who The precarious, volatile political climate has also voted against Trump and those who are targeted by required new and imaginative modes of addressing Trumpism, these are dark, distressing times. And yet, pedagogy itself. Alexandra Juhasz and Clelia Rodriguez resistance to authoritarianism, misogyny, and racism has both took familiar genres -- the syllabus and the literacy flourished—from Black Lives Matter and NoDAPL to the

RADICAL TEACHER 3 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.530 primer -- and remade them to serve our current moment. in her classroom to investigate the long history of white Rodriguez’s “#shitholes syllabus” both imitates the generic supremacy that paved the way for Trump’s election. college syllabus and echoes the phenomenon of online Inspired by the collectively formulated Trump 2.0 syllabus aggregated syllabi that formed around specific issues published on the Public Books website, Kitzmiller’s course, connected to the histories of racial violence in the United structured by a range of intersectional topics connecting States (most notably the #Charlestonsyllabus after the race, sexuality, housing, citizenship and capitalism in the 2015 murder of nine parishioners of the Emanuel African US, was designed to counter the silence and evasiveness Methodist Episcopal Church by a white supremacist and the around the history of structural racism that continues to #Fergusonsyllabus, which contextualized the murder of an prevail in most public schools. Tristan Josephson’s essay unarmed black teenager by a police officer and the describes teaching conservative students in women’s and subsequent protests in Ferguson, MO in 2014). At the gender studies classes who have mobilized the discourse of same time, it does not select readings or lay out a schedule college as a “safe space” to ward off potential challenges to of classes. Rather, Rodriguez offers her readers a lyrical what Josephson calls “Trump feminism.” Realizing that it meditation on race and racialization, and resists the was productive neither to put conservative students on the normalization of white supremacy. Juhasz reimagines a defensive nor to let their use of a rhetoric of victimhood media literacy primer through poetry, images, and a slide, Josephson developed creative modes of pedagogical parliamentary-style “resolution” to offer a variety of engagement that asked students to grapple with the avenues teachers and students can take to counter the material power differentials that shape identity and politics. ultimate Trumpian formulation: fake news. She traces the On some campuses, faculty and students worked long history of mis- and dis-information from both together to come up with strategies of resistance. Ann government and media and introduces her readers to Cahill and Tom Mould had the full support of their “#hardtruths,” locating poetry as a possible site of real institution’s administration and the enthusiastic truth-telling. Working within a very different educational participation of students and faculty to run a new one- context--a charter high school in Chicago--DJ Cashmere credit course they called “Refusing to Wait: Intellectual and describes his efforts to design and teach a course in Practical Resources for Troubling Times.” Their article liberatory cultural studies to tenth graders. Aiming to move explores the achievements of this exciting collaborative beyond a liberal, white-teacher-as-savior model, Cashmere project, and also its challenges. While they were successful and his co-teacher developed a unit on social biography, in in putting together an innovative syllabus, and discussions which the Black and Latinx students researched and were lively, they had more trouble marshalling their narrated the challenges and successes of their lives in collective political energies for concrete action, even political context. The class culminated with a community though that was an explicit element of the course. Their sharing night, where students presented their stories to essay shows us that the gap between theory and praxis is their families and each another, forging an environment of a difficult one to bridge, even in the comparatively solidarity and collective struggle. contained environment of the college classroom. And as A number of the articles here describe the challenges Audrey Fisch’s essay demonstrates, sometimes the theory of educating students who are unaware of or possibly can be elusive as well. She describes an exercise she used hostile to the histories that made Trump’s election with first-year composition students in which she framed possible, as well as having to negotiate timid and then reframed a video clip and the responses it elicited administrators and conservative environments. Travis in social media to illustrate how thin the line between news Boyce does the difficult work of showing his University of sources, social media, and “fake news” can be for some North Colorado students the interconnections between the students, whose primary source of news can often be their anti-black racism that hovered barely under the surface of social media feeds. But rather than simply condemning the campus and the regional embrace of the Confederacy college-age students for their naiveté or apathy -- a and the myth of the Lost Cause. Ultimately, he argues, it is common strategy in political and media circles -- Fisch impossible to separate what he calls “the collegiate idea” introduced her students to various modes of media critique from the history of Confederate sympathizing, given how and information literacy. At the same time, even a deeply rooted college institutions such as fraternities and consciously crafted exercise in media savvy could, she sports teams have been in perpetuating the romance of the feared, “further my students’ distrust of the media and not antebellum South. Bill Beutel describes his efforts to in a healthy or productive way.” Just as Cahill’s and engage his middle school students in civic action and Mould’s students struggled to make connections between political self-examination in the context of a school board theorizing political resistance and actualizing it, Fisch’s and administration that keep a close eye on any students had to work hard to sort out which media were pedagogical content deemed too radical (such as teaching worth believing even as they engaged in critique. the histories of Christianity and Islam in similar ways). To Hannah Ashley and Katie Solic stepped outside the give his students a context to think about current political classroom in order to make those connections. In their events, he constructed a civics class that assigned students essay, they describe the process of using an institutional the task of comparing the United States of 2018 with the emphasis on urban education to create an insurgent, Roman empire -- its foreign policy, political structures, and collaborative project, the Rustin Urban Community Change social hierarchies. Through this scheme, he made space for Axis, or RUCCAS. Bringing together students, faculty, staff critique that was student-generated and inquiry based. and community organization leaders, RUCCAS aims not Erika Kitzmiller designed a graduate education course that merely to teach, but also to build local grassroots power for asked the mostly white, middle-class teachers-in-training

RADICAL TEACHER 4 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.530 racial and economic justice. RUCCAS is housed in a or even crypto (or not so crypto) fascism. These articles university, but clearly exceeds academic boundaries as a provide us with lesson plans in resistance, plans we will hub and incubator for urban change-makers that links sorely need as we move into an uncertain future. students with an array of community groups through organizing and participatory action projects. Ashley and Notes Solic discuss substantial challenges, but also offer a powerful model for democratic educational counter- 1 New York Times Editorial Board, “Predatory Colleges, institution building. Working within a more conventional Freed to Fleece Students,” The New York Times, May 22, educational setting--a college art classroom--Heath Schultz 2018: describes his efforts to help a diverse group of Texas public https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/22/opinion/predatory- university students confront their feelings of helplessness colleges-students-devos.html and despair in the wake of the 2016 election and challenge 2 Stephenie Johnson, Neil Campbell, and Scott Sargrad, racist ideologies circulating in public visual culture. Schultz “Trump and DeVos Continue to Undermine Public Education and his students researched the long history of imperial with Their Proposed Fiscal Year 2019 Budget,” Center for policing and surveillance of the US-Mexico border, as well American Progress, February 12, 2018. as radical responses to it by artists such as Gloria https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education-k- Anzaldúa, Teresa Fernández, Margarita Cabrera and others. 12/news/2018/02/12/446423/trump-devos-continue- To conclude the semester, Schultz’s students created their undermine-public-education-proposed-fiscal-year-2019- own collective artistic response to the current moment: a budget/ sculptural anti-border-wall which they installed in the college’s art building, and which asked viewers to think 3 The National Center for Transgender Equality describes critically about the racist cultural and social implications of Trump as “the most anti-transgender President in American US immigration policies. history.” For details, see: https://transequality.org/the- discrimination-administration Even as we write this introduction, the political and pedagogical climate that this issue’s authors are trying to 4 For Chomsky on Trump as a “disaster” on the negotiate, resist, grapple with, and teach within is environment, military spending, immigration and more, changing rapidly -- and not for the better. In the final see: http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/44261-a- couple of weeks of editing, the world seemed to flip over complete-disaster-noam-chomsky-on-trump-and-the- several times. Trump’s repudiation of familiar allies in favor future-of-us-politic of cuddling up to North Korea; the administration’s open 5 Jessica Purkiss and Jack Searle, “Obama’s Covert Drone embrace then unconvincing denials and finally smug War in Numbers: Ten Times More Strikes than Bush,” The retraction of the racist and inhumane policy of separating Bureau of Investigative Journalism, January 1, 2017: parents and children at the southern US border; the https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2017-01- Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the ban on visitors 17/obamas-covert-drone-war-in-numbers-ten-times-more- from several Muslim-majority countries; and the ongoing strikes-than-bush characterization of Latin American immigrants as an infestation: it is hard not to imagine that the worst is yet to come or even predict a deeper slide into authoritarianism

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RADICAL TEACHER 5 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.530 ISSN: 1941-0832

Preaching to the Choir: Turning Anger Into Engagement at Urban Community Colleges

by Jesse W. Schwartz

STUDENTS AT LAGUARDIA COMMUNITY COLLEGE, PHOTO COURTESY OF AUTHOR

RADICAL TEACHER 6 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.485

n the wake of the last presidential election, and like so attempt to process some of their anger, sadness, many of my fellow educators, I was uncertain what to confusion, and fear. expect when I entered the classroom the morning after I For the following fall 2017 semester—and while I November 8th. And, indeed, the horrific and all-too- hesitate to call it a silver lining exactly—I will admit that believable accounts of students and teachers alike being my students in general (and in most cases by necessity) harassed in school by emboldened bigots of all hate-filled seemed to arrive in my class more politically conscious persuasions rapidly started to flood my social media. than ever before. And the conversations in class seemed to Personally, I was in an enviable situation when it came to be of the same tenor as the previous term, if perhaps at a the possibility of threat: As a cis-gendered straight white slightly less feverish pitch—as many of the Trump male with gainful employment, I wasn’t exactly a prime Administration’s most horrific attempts at racist policies target for any of the increased vitriol being unleashed upon continued to be stayed by the courts. Though I was happy the millions of people that didn’t inhabit such a socially to continue giving my students a space to read about, fortunate combination of identity positions.1 Professionally, critically think on, and write about the administration’s however, my situation was far more complicated even policies and their rage, I began to experience an increasing though (once again) I did not feel at risk myself: As an dissatisfaction at using the class merely as a pressure assistant professor of English at LaGuardia Community valve for their very understandable anxiety and anger. Or, College, one of twenty-four schools within the City rather, in the midst of such a vulnerable yet conscious University of New York (CUNY) system, I knew that the population of students that continued to express a sense of overwhelming majority of my students were powerlessness overall, I wanted help them channel their overdetermined targets for the sexism, homophobia, political concerns into action—as one of the most common immigrant-bashing, and race-baiting that had characterized questions my students asked during those first few months the campaign—while the subsequent policies unleashed by was: “But what can we do about it?” So I decided to take this new administration seemed almost tailor-made to their query seriously, designing an English 101 class inflict maximum damage to the lives and loved ones of the wherein all the readings and writing would be oriented people in my classroom. around some kind of rights-based activism in order to help First, some context: CUNY is the largest and most them understand what was happening, apprehend the deep diverse urban university system in the country, and and imbricated histories that had brought us to this point, LaGuardia is the most diverse school within that system assist them in researching possible opportunities for (our unofficial motto, “The World’s Community College,” is involvement—and then, most importantly, take part in a rarity in higher ed: a tagline closer to fact than what they found in whatever ways were both achievable aspiration). As of 2016, our student body of over 19,000 and made sense for their particular political engagements. was nearly 60% women, was an astonishing 89% non- And, as with so many well-meaning educational designs, it white, and spoke over 125 languages. 71% of the entire is here that my problems began. student body come from families making less than $30K per year, half are Latinx, and an incredible 57% are 1 Though I was happy to continue foreign-born. Needless to say, the pallor afflicting my usually ebullient classes was palpable, and, for nearly two giving my students a space to read full weeks after the election, I discarded my lesson plans about, critically think on, and write almost entirely—as my students and I discussed more about the administration’s policies pressing existential concerns, such as what to do for an and their rage, I began to undocumented family member or where to get legal help experience an increasing for students that no longer felt comfortable (if, indeed, dissatisfaction at using the class they ever did) about contacting police in the wake of a merely as a pressure valve for their crime. very understandable anxiety and After we addressed the most dire problems that had anger. arisen, my classes and I spent much of the rest of that semester attempting to provide historical context to the In short, after a semester and a half of helping my broad social changes that, for many of my students, had students manage their anger and fear, I developed a occurred seemingly overnight. We also endeavored to syllabus with a component of outside social engagement codify what “Trumpism” was (or even if, in fact, such a built in. Obviously, I was not assigning a single political term could be organized into an even loose collection of viewpoint, issue, or position, and would certainly not want monstrously related ideologies). From a campaign season to dictate where they went and what they did there—so that began with the suddenly real prospect of free from the very beginning I decided to leave everything but community college for all (à la Sanders) and then ended the actual fact of attending some type of event, discussion, with the Trump administration’s Muslim ban, my students action, etc. entirely up to them. My first question, then, expressed the same shock and vertigo I heard about from was what a syllabus of praxis might look like, and where I many of my colleagues—so I was happy to use the might find some examples. Frankly, after some initial classroom as a place where the students could, in part, online searches, I was somewhat surprised to find so few lesson plans and assignments that asked for real engagement outside the classroom (though perhaps it was my own misunderstanding of the search terms). Certainly,

RADICAL TEACHER 7 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.485 and since at least the tragedy of Ferguson, plenty of dramatic confrontations with law enforcement (and though excellent reading lists and lesson plans exist for in-class many expressed a desire to take part in such actions, they practice, but otherwise inspired syllabi organized around were understandably concerned that such involvement such topics as Black Lives Matter, Charlottesville, and might jeopardize their own lives as well as their families’ Beyoncé’s “Lemonade” provided outstanding materials but immigration status). After several valuable conversations little based outside the boundaries of the classroom. And with my students around these issues, my first goal was to what few assignments I did find struck me as help dispel some of these misconceptions (and, of course, overwhelmingly conceived for privileged students at small also agree with a number of their suspicions)—and to also residential colleges—young people usually already imbued facilitate their understanding that there is a vast space of with the sense of belonging (not to mention also the time, possible engagement between simply “liking” a friend’s money, and US citizenship) that would make such outings political Facebook post and getting tear-gassed by cops. far easier to accomplish than for my own students. This lack of materials applicable for the people in my classrooms—ironically the very groups that ostensibly had My point of departure for the the most to “lose” from the new administration—demanded class was the Gramscian contention that I try to create a form of engagement that could be that “‘everyone’ is a philosopher built in with relative ease to any research-based writing and that it is not a question of component of an introductory-level class at any urban introducing from scratch a scientific school and for any student body. form of thought into everyone’s My point of departure for the class was the Gramscian individual life, but of renovating and contention that “‘everyone’ is a philosopher and that it is making ‘critical’ an already existing not a question of introducing from scratch a scientific form activity.” of thought into everyone’s individual life, but of renovating and making ‘critical’ an already existing activity.” 2 I also Emerging out of these concerns and contradictions, it advertised my intentions as such: A composition course seemed important to first come up with a working based on rights-based movements that would hopefully be definition of activism itself that encompassed as many of filled by students at least mildly interested in the topic, and the various forms of engagement we could think of, which looking to channel their anger, interest, and convictions we produced together as a class using an amalgam of the into action. Luckily, I had a better turnout than expected Wikipedia entry and a few online dictionaries: “Activism is and the class seemed to be equally divided by thirds: simply any activity and engagement in the service of social About six students arrived already politically active and change.” With this as our guide, we then made a list on the engaged, another six were politically curious but had no board of all the possible actions that could fall under such a previous experience with “activism” (broadly conceived), capacious definition, hoping to demystify what for many and another six were admittedly just there because the was a previously imposing term. Within this class fit their schedule. characterization, many students immediately recognized As we discussed the content of the course and that they had already been involved in such activities, like expectations of outside engagement—and though I was the student who quickly raised her hand and asked, “So constantly buoyed by most of my students’ desire to when the families on my block all let each other know protect their families as well as fight back in solidarity with when ICE is patrolling, that’s activism too?” My students, other groups under threat—when we discussed the armed with the new definition they had come up with, practical nature of “getting involved,” three distinct assured her—much to her delight— that she was already categories of difficulty, confusion, and resistance emerged: very much an activist. 1. Either the systems and structures they wanted to fight As a corollary writing assignment to this definition- against seemed impossibly vast, powerful, and diffuse or making, I wanted to help them understand the rubrics of they simply had very little understanding of the what the humanities and social sciences conceive of as organizations and groups that already existed to combat “identity categories” in order for them to articulate their such entities (with emblematic questions like “how do I own positionality based on these groupings, and then to fight a federal policy?” or “what can I do to stop police analyze how their life experiences may be explained at violence?”); 2. Students expressed a concern that they least in part by how they locate themselves within such wouldn’t necessarily feel welcome in more local settings formations—not, of course, as a destiny preordained but focused on political and social change (they usually viewed rather as contours of possibility. To this end, after a brief such groups in NYC—and, frankly, often with good reason— discussion of the concepts, we listed on the board all the as what one student called “white spaces”); or 3. In the identity categories we could think of (with one particularly age of Black Lives Matter— whose public-facing members prepared student asking, “And what about both inspired and intimidated many of my students with intersectionality?”—and then eagerly explaining to the class their deep historical knowledge, theoretical sophistication, 2 and uncompromising fervor—they thought all “activism” what she meant by that term). I then asked all the meant some kind of public protest that often led to students to adopt whichever categories they thought defined them best, and to write down a personal story they thought was only possible due to the categories they chose. As we went around the room sharing our work, the

RADICAL TEACHER 8 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.485 sadly unsurprising instances of homophobia, transphobia, This extensive framing took us about halfway through racism, and sexism by family members, employers, the the semester, and it was then time for them to choose police, etc. soon emerged. In fact, the only two cis- their own topics as well as their sites of outside gendered straight white male students in the class engagement. Fortunately, we have a pretty politically provided accidental and good-natured foils to the previous active campus, so the class and I were able to attend stories: Both explained a narrative about how their identity several events organized at LaGuardia to help them dispel categories helped them avoid being affected when law some of the anxiety around preparedness and inclusion: A enforcement had discovered them using cannabis in a local symposium on Black Lives Matter, an event on immigration park and allowed them to leave—only to then detain and rights, and a forum on the “right to the city”—all about arrest their darker-skinned friends. which my students reported an enormous sense of relief and excitement to see rooms full of young people that This centrality of identity categories helped them make looked just like them already engaged in this kind of work. more sense of the texts I had mapped out for the class. In Their final projects would be a combination of the entire fact, the path I’d hoped to take was relatively simple: First semester so far: Their identities as they saw them in the to understand themselves and their experiences as in part wake of Trump combined with a powerful and specific case corralled by systems, institutions, and ideologies that had study of whatever social issue they wanted to learn more long preceded them; then to make sense of the loose about, which would then also be the subject of—or at least amalgamation of both spectacular and quotidian horrors related to—their outside activism. As that extracurricular alongside the triumphantly cruel venality that comprised phase approached, my students once again evinced the the baggy doctrine of Trumpism; next to read case studies anxiety they had expressed on the first day of class about around some issues that affected them directly; and finally what to do, where to do it, and how they would be to engage in some kind of scaffolded research project that received. I tried to counter some of this worry by detailing comprised at least in part some kind of activity outside the my own engagements over the years, and how varied the classroom in the service of social change (as they experiences had been—from helping plan direct actions as themselves understood the phrase). We soon set about an undergrad to protesting various causes in the streets reading any number of the seemingly infinite “think pieces” over the years to hyperlocal concerns such as forming a on Trumpism, its effects, and the histories that engendered “friends” group for my local dog park. Much more it. We also read short pieces from the Black Lives Matter effectively than my own recollections, I used some humor website that characterized the movement in its own words to defuse their discomfort, showing the class some short and on its own terms. Added to that were longer-form clips from the recent sitcom “Parks & Recreation,” wherein works such as Ta-Nehisi Coates’ sweeping “The Case For the lead characters hold town-hall meetings filled with Reparations” (also a profound model of insight, analysis, humorously exaggerated versions of the “types” such and argumentation for the classes’ upcoming research gatherings often attract. My students were certain that projects). And all of their writing assignments, both long- actual meetings couldn’t possibly be quite as strange or as form and low-stakes, were in some way focused on seemingly meaningless minutiae. investigations of these topics. For the Luckily, my own community board in Brooklyn broader case study, I chose New York City posts all their own meetings online in full, so I itself—a cliché (to my mind at least) had several of these clips also ready to go. While precisely because it’s so fecund. In these events are often only comical in how dry particular, I thought the topic of they can be, my students were fascinated as gentrification seemed a sadly ideal site to local residents took to the microphones to help my students understand how such complain—sometimes in lengthy and heated seemingly abstract concepts as “global diatribes—about such seemingly minor concerns finance” could forcefully combine with as loud feral cats and the style of new garbage previously existing legacies of racism, cans, but also about more pressing local issues sexism, classism, and other ideologies of like dangerous construction, the lack of exclusion to transform my students’ very affordable housing, and, in the particular case of neighborhoods—and, indeed, often force North Brooklyn, the recent disastrous handling them and their families to move multiple by a local police precinct of a string of sexual- times in its wake (or, in some cases, to assault allegations. In a more moderate become unhomed entirely)—while also VANISHING NEW YORK: HOW A GREAT CITY LOST ITS SOUL BY instance, one local resident began peppering the providing a number of possibilities for local JEREMIAH MOSS, DEY STREET would-be proprietor of a new bar with demands engagement. Jeremiah Moss’s recent BOOKS (2017) for noise diminution as well as promises of Vanishing New York did an excellent job of security to manage the crowds. One student who breaking down complicated topics and terms such as lived above an apparently raucous establishment in her neoliberalism (relying in large part on CUNY’s own David own neighborhood was excited to see someone publicly Harvey and his greatly missed student, Neil Smith) and demanding from business owners exactly the respect and explaining how seemingly abstract forces like “global accountability she wished her downstairs neighbor would capital” relate directly to NYC real estate and politics— offer her own block. My students were also happy to see particularly when it comes to such unmistakably imbricated and implicated practices such as food deserts and stop & frisk.

RADICAL TEACHER 9 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.485 that the faces running the 3meeting looked much like New presentation to the class. And not only were the York itself: An older Black woman sitting next to an presentations an exciting way for them to share their work Orthodox Jewish man sitting next to a young Latinx woman with their peers, but they also cross-pollinated rather sitting next to a Southeast Asian man wearing a rainbow quickly: Students not only saw connections between the flag on his shirt. Perhaps a little unfairly, I also showed a work of anti-racist groups and affordable-housing full and monstrously boring ten-minute clip of one local organizations, but they also learned from one another contractor detailing all the safety protocols for large-scale about other meetings they might want to attend—and construction after a local zoning change, hoping to mitigate indeed some declared with enthusiasm that they planned my students’ unease with the very real tedium that can at to do exactly that. The projects included the gentrification times characterize local involvement. of the East Village (with time spent by the reporting student at the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space), Obviously, for the typical community-college student, Russia’s military and stealth incursions into former both time and money are at a premium. Nearly all of my territories and spheres of influence (by an immigrant from students had at least part-time jobs, and in addition either the Republic of Georgia who attended a meeting at the UN, took care of their own children or another family member with access granted by his diplomat father), and state- (and, not that infrequently, both) while also taking a full sanctioned homophobia in Jamaica (by a queer immigrant load of courses to qualify for financial aid. So while I was from that nation’s capital who spent her time at a meeting adamant that they needed to attend at least one outside in Queens dedicated to spotlighting the increasing rates of meeting, event, action, etc., I also wanted to stay mindful violence suffered by queer women of color). Most of their previous obligations and complicated lives. I surprisingly (and perhaps due in part to their targeted decided, and only if absolutely necessary, they could research ahead of time), not a single student expressed attend one of the politically themed meetings at school in any sense of exclusion during their meetings, and several order to save time and travel—and I am happy to say that went out of their way to express how warm, welcoming, only one of sixteen students took me up on that offer. and grateful a number of organizations were to have them So, to decide what they might do off-campus, I first there. In a particularly poignant combination of school and had them do a freewrite in class on their interests in life, one student, who had to miss two weeks of class in general, their political positions in particular, and their order for her whole family to fly to Puerto Rico in the wake identity categories, and then look for any kind of theme of Hurricane Maria to locate one of her aunts, attended an that might run through all three. For example, one student organizational meeting in Brooklyn focused on outreach to interested in history and anti-gentrification movements, that island—and she has since remained deeply involved. and who identified as a queer woman, began looking for Indeed, that was not an unlikely result: One of my groups that helped LGBTQIA+ groups find affordable students is now a member of Students for Justice in housing. In her searches, she found an organization that Palestine at Hunter College, where he plans to transfer helped homeless queer youth find shelter, with an open call next year, and another student is still involved in homeless for volunteers. As we began researching other outreach in her neighborhood of Woodhaven, Queens. In organizations that fit their interests (such as Make The fact, I was frankly a bit shocked at how excited my Road New York and the Doe Fund), and because concerns students declared themselves to be to remain engaged around time were such an issue, I had them make a list of with their work outside the school (and, by way of at least five possible groups and meeting times they were anecdotal run-ins with several of them in the halls, they interested in, and then decide which meeting at what time remain so). and location made the most sense for them. I also asked them to do this about a month in advance in order to have plenty of time to organize their schedule around the In fact, I was frankly a bit upcoming event. This light “contract” was then written into shocked at how excited my students the assignment itself (as one of the many staged blog declared themselves to be to remain posts related to the final project). Obviously, if any engaged with their work outside the changes needed to be made at a later date, a simple email school (and, by way of anecdotal or talking to me about it after class would be fine. I also run-ins with several of them in the had them—as much as was possible—try to organize all halls, they remain so). their off-campus meetings over the same three-week span so we could spend a little time in each class discussing what they had done and reflecting on how the students In short, and most immediately, an assignment that might use such experiences in their finished project. The asks for this kind of engagement seems to help them very first report—told in excited terms to her classmates— understand that multiple networks already exist to combat merely helped beget a virtuous circle, and only two exactly the kinds of policies and ideologies they had students had to reschedule their meetings due to last- already expressed such understandable concern about minute conflicts. while also helping dispel some of the misconceptions they had about engagement in the first place. And, after several After all the meetings had been attended and the conversations with other interested faculty, I would think projects completed, my students’ final requirement was a that most urban community colleges provide a similarly ideal site through which to demystify and thereby increase the level of local engagement for a population of students—

RADICAL TEACHER 10 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.485 at least in my experience—eager to get involved. In terms what they were doing was the first time I didn’t feel of grading, I found it relatively easy to separate my own hopeless since the election. It was the first time I actually obvious delight with their out-of-class events from the believed Kendrick when he said, ‘We gon’ be alright’—and more nuts-and-bolts needs of an English composition class. now I was one of the people helping to get us there.” I assessed students’ final projects holistically as I usually do: Attempting to gauge their ability to synthesize vast and various materials into a coherent argument (after all, this was still 101), but also through their ability to integrate the Notes materials we covered in class into a coherent argumentative whole. Of course, I didn’t grade them on 1 I’m Jewish—but, as a secular Jew living in New York City, their activistic enthusiasm, but I did see a strong and I feel (perhaps naively) insulated from much of the brunt perhaps unsurprising link between their efforts in class and of the recent rise of anti-Semitism. their efforts outside. 2 Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Most importantly (for myself as an educator, at least), Antonio Gramsci (New York: International Publishers, this approach confirmed a hunch I had about the apathy 2005) 330-331. supposedly afflicting that oft-maligned group, so general as to be nearly imaginary: “college students today.” Rather than prodding or prompting, most of my own students simply needed a light introduction to the possibilities for action—and then for me to get out of the way. What’s more, while I have great latitude as to the thematic focus for ENG101, I could easily see myself building similar assignments into any of my literature classes that have political components, especially “ethnic” and immigrant American literatures. But composition does seem like an ideal site to engage most students right as they arrive—so, ideally, I would teach this class again in a similar fashion, swapping out certain readings for more current ones (indeed, this semester I’ve included a piece about and a few videos of the Parkland activists, particularly Emma Gonzalez, the queer Latinx woman from Florida, who has offered my students so much in the way of both identity politics and a model of youthful political engagement). I’m also mindful of the potential difficulties of using such an approach in other locations: I teach in an area rather hostile to the current administration (on average, districts in Brooklyn and Queens voted for Clinton by about 80- 93%), and I also have a very supportive and outspoken set of administrators at LaGuardia, so I might suggest to other educators in less favorable climes to focus as much as possible on the engagement itself rather than any particular political position or desire. And whatever pedagogical challenges that remain are not specific to this class but are familiar to anyone teaching first-year students at community colleges: A lack of preparation, complicated personal situations, and the ever-present exigencies of poverty. None of this, of course, minimizes my desire to teach this way again, and my goal would be to use such assignments until there’s no longer any need to—though, to paraphrase the old Soviet joke, such titanic social transformation appears always to be “just” over the horizon. However, even without any idealistic fantasies, at the very least this course helped my students understand that such outside engagement was not only possible but, in an urban area, relatively easy to find—and often even enjoyable. Or, as one of my students poignantly said during his presentation: “Going to this meeting and hearing

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RADICAL TEACHER 11 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.485 ISSN: 1941-0832

On Belonging: Children Respond to Trump through Play and Imagination

by Emily Claire Price and A. Susan Jurow

CHILD’S PROTEST SIGN, COURTESY AUTHORS

RADICAL TEACHER 12 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.474

onald Trump’s words and actions have emboldened attending to issues of equity. Although we agree that they a new generation of racist, sexist, and xenophobic are absolutely capable, we take the argument a step D individuals to speak out without fear of being further in asserting that children already are contending ostracized by the larger society, and to commit horrific acts with issues of equity, relative to their local community and of violence against people whose skin, ethnicity, gender, context. To ignore this fact is to do a disservice to both the sexuality, or ability does not align with the dominant students themselves and to our larger society. As group. His proposed policies attack the rights of nearly educators, we believe that we should be listening for, every group that is not white, male, Christian, and taking seriously, and attending to issues of equity that wealthy, and we have seen these attitudes and actions children are contending with, which will vary greatly embodied in our schools as well. While the campaign and depending on the local community and context. This election of Donald Trump has led to dangerous levels of positioning of children as agentic, empowered, full beings discriminatory language, actions, and policies in our in their own right is a radical approach to teaching, as early society, systems of oppression and structures of privilege childhood and elementary education traditionally positions were not created during the campaign, but were granted a children as recipients of knowledge, rather than as active renewed legitimacy in its wake. Our ability to stratify and constructors of it. segregate, to conquer and to oppress, is inherent to the very fabric of our country; it is a part of our collective historical identity. Although the stakes have greatly Although equity-oriented increased since the election, divisive rhetoric and teaching has taken on a sense of prejudicial policies are not something new to American urgency during this presidential society, nor are they new to the children enrolled in the term, we hold that its application public schools that are tasked with preparing them to be extends beyond this immediate full participants in this society. political moment, as examinations Despite this, in our combined 30 years of teaching in of power, privilege, and identity are early childhood and elementary classrooms, afterschool central to a comprehensive public programs, and university-based teacher education courses school experience. leading up until the 2016 election, we have encountered educators, caregivers, administrators, and policymakers Although equity-oriented teaching has taken on a who did not feel it was necessary or appropriate to discuss sense of urgency during this presidential term, we hold issues of equity and identity with students in primary that its application extends beyond this immediate political schools. This stance was informed by a number of moment, as examinations of power, privilege, and identity assumptions, including, for example, the mistaken belief are central to a comprehensive public school experience. that we had already “solved” racism as well as the belief Our approach to equity-oriented teaching is radical in both that attending to issues of equity is beyond the purpose of its positioning of investigations of power as central to the public education, which should concentrate on the learning process, and its focus on transformative action. transmission and acquisition of academic skills. The Specifically, how we organize our teaching facilitates and assumption that has proved most pervasive in relegating advocates for the transformation of institutional practices critical discussions of power and privilege to the secondary over adaptation to them. It is our duty as educators to domain, and the one that we centrally respond to in this respond honestly to the issues all of our students are paper, is the belief that children are largely unaware of contending with, including our youngest ones. In this issues of equity. Following from this, if we were to article, we aim to illuminate the critical role of play in introduce these topics into the early childhood or exploring issues of equity with young children. We provide elementary classroom, some argue that we would examples of how we designed for play-based explorations effectively be burdening our students with material that is of privilege and power in a low-income afterschool program neither developmentally appropriate or relevant to their with majority Latino students in the months before, during, lives. and after the election of Donald Trump. In examining the In this article, we trace this assumption to the framing play that resulted, we describe how the children explored of children as innocent and our perceived societal need to themes of identity and belonging as a means of preserve and protect that innocence. If we are to attend to interrogating, interrupting, and responding to Trump’s issues of inequity that young students are contending with, characterizations of Mexicans in particular. we need to develop a view of children that does not position them as passive recipients of knowledge, but active constructors of it. We draw from childhood studies, Introducing the Players and the Play feminist theories, and queer theories in contending that EPIC is an afterschool literacy, arts, and technology children are not only affected by inequalities in our larger design club co-facilitated by the University of Colorado at society, but are actively working to make sense of them. Boulder’s School of Education and Alicia Sanchez We argue that one of the primary tasks of childhood is International Elementary School. In its eighth year, the making sense of the often unspoken norms, hierarchies, club meets three days a week and offers free afterschool and structures that characterize the adult world they have programming for children ages 7 to 11. The club is come to inhabit. In this regard, our argument goes beyond dedicated to (1) improving the academic, social, and the contention that children are simply capable of emotional learning opportunities for the elementary

RADICAL TEACHER 13 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.474 students, a significant percentage of whom are racial and both recurring and improvised elements that allow them to ethnic minorities living in poverty; and (2) preparing a create imaginary worlds in which “new metaphors, new majority middle-class, white female population of pre- forms of social relations, and new patterns of power and service teachers, with limited experience working with desire are explored” (Davies, 2003, p. 167). At EPIC, we historically marginalized communities effectively (Cole & encourage children to play through familiar media the Distributed Literacy Consortium, 2006; Freeman & narratives so that they can embody and feel the Jurow, in press). Pre-service teachers participate in the constraints of stereotypical characters, actions, and plot club as a requirement of a university course in which they lines and improvise ways to play around these obstacles are enrolled on theories of learning. (Ferholt, 2009, 2010; Wohlwend, 2013). In this regard, play is not a means of escaping reality; rather, it is a The demographics of the elementary students who means of making sense of it. attend the afterschool club reflect that of the general school population, with the exception that a growing percentage of Mexican-identifying students have opted into Our positioning of play as a form the club as it has continued to operate. Approximately 66% of equity-oriented learning has of the school’s student population identify as Latinx, and roots in an agentic framing of who over 80% of the students who attend our club do. children are, and what childhood is. Additionally, many of the students whom we serve are first or second generation immigrants. Although almost all of the student participants are fluent English speakers, many Our positioning of play as a form of equity-oriented also speak Spanish with various degrees of fluency. learning has roots in an agentic framing of who children Approximately 74% of students live in households are, and what childhood is. The conception of children as experiencing high-poverty, making the population of the human beings rather than human becomings is a fairly school unique from the school district it is a part of, which recent development (Corsaro, 2005; James, 2009). Prior to is largely affluent, white, and high-achieving as measured this, the predominant view was that children were worthy by standardized tests. of study insofar as they were able to provide insight into adult life and specifically, the transition into adulthood The first author is a white Ph.D. candidate whose (Christensen & James, 2008; Piaget, 1969; Woodhead, teaching background is in urban early childhood education. 2009; Woodhead & Faulkner 2008). Despite a shift in the She now works in teacher education at the university level, academic theorization of childhood, the dominant paradigm and works with the second author in designing, facilitating, is still hugely influential in popular understanding and in and researching equity-oriented learning for both children practice (Casteñeda, 2010; James, 1993; Stockton, 2009). and pre-service teachers at the afterschool program described in this article. She is the primary project One of the primary tasks of childhood is making sense designer and on-site coordinator. The second author is an of, problematizing, deconstructing, and reinventing the Indian-American professor of Education and the Director of social norms and constructs of the adult world that children the EPIC afterschool club and teacher education program. have come to inhabit, including the construction of their As the Director, she is responsible for designing a own existence as children. We theorize this process largely university-school partnership that is mutually beneficial for through interpretive reproduction, a term developed by all stakeholders, including the elementary students. She Corsaro (2005) to capture both the innovative and creative has designed curriculum units to support equity-oriented aspects of children in society, as well as the idea that learning at the club and conducted research on children’s children are not simply internalizing society and culture, and pre-service teachers’ learning through club activities. but are actively contributing to cultural production and change. Interpretive reproduction provides a means of theorizing children’s social development as neither linear Engaging Inequities and Imagining More nor as an exact copy of existing structures, but rather, as a Equitable Futures through Play process of reproduction that includes children’s contention with ambiguities, tensions, and difficulties, as well as their In an effort to support culturally relevant and resolutions, reconstructions, and reinterpretations of meaningful learning and teaching, we privilege play as a existing norms and ways of being. In our analysis of how central means for engaging issues of equity at EPIC. Play is children’s play mediates their equity-oriented explorations, the language children speak to make sense of their world, we look at how interpretive reproduction is enacted and to begin to develop answers to questions about their through children’s storytelling that is occurring inside the role in it (Davies, 2003; Gallas, 1998; Lindqvist, 1995, playworlds and structures we have designed. 2001; Paley, 2010, 2004; Vygotsky, 1978). When children are faced with a tension in their social order, or an upsetting event that they need to process, they turn to Designing for Play-Based Explorations of play as a way to work through problems and imagine new Equity possibilities for themselves. We view play as a form of improvised storytelling, in which children develop At EPIC, we design semester-long theme-based units characters, take on identities and roles, and experiment that promote the exploration of issues of equity with which with multiple storylines and endings (Galman, 2017; Paley, students are actively contending. We invite children to play 1984; Wohlwend, 2012, 2009). Children’s play includes in fantasy worlds that raise current social injustices that

RADICAL TEACHER 14 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.474 students have indicated are of concern to them through each unit serve as a central guiding point, as a semester conversation, writing, art, and play. With each theme, we may end with a very different project that the one develop both real-world and fantasy realm entry points and originally designed anticipated. The capacity of our guiding questions that bridge these two domains. curriculum to shift as a result of the children’s concerns and questions allows the club to become a space where In one unit, we drew on students’ expertise in children can solve meaningful problems together with the identifying the messages that Disney fairytales and their support of peers and adult collaborators. associated books, movies, toys, and other media products present to us about who we are, what we can do, and who we can be. We sought to encourage students’ critical Who Belongs, and Who Gets to Decide? awareness of implicit messages about race, gender, class, language, and other social constructs in books, movies, In the months leading up to Trump’s election, issues of and in commercial products more broadly, and to see these identity and belonging were consistent themes in the texts as both pliable and revisable (Davies, 2003; Gallas, children’s play. In play scenes representing both their 1998; Wohlwend, 2012, 2009). We developed this current reality and imagined futures, children explored particular project to help the children make sense of the questions such as: Who belongs? Who gets to decide? And, negative narratives and messages that were circulating what types of inclusion and exclusion are best for a during Trump’s campaign in the fall of 2016. We had heard community? As children of Mexican immigrants who were the children voice strong emotional reactions and sharp largely portrayed as a problem for the United States, intellectual critiques to Trump’s portrayals of their belonging and deserving to belong in the country were communities and themselves with us - as Mexicans, as central and consequential issues. In the following, we share immigrants, as girls, as emergent bilinguals, as being or two examples that illustrate how the children took up the having undocumented family members. As part of how we question of who belongs through collaborative play. The approach curriculum design, we used the children’s examples underscore how the children engaged with reactions as the basis for organizing a personally- interpretive reproduction in order to make sense of the meaningful context for play and exploration. way they, their families, and their community were being positioned. They were selected because of how they In designing all of our project units, we rely on a set of illuminated the children’s sustained interest in questions norms and routines that facilitate playful engagement with about what it means to belong and organize fair systems of real world problems. In order for us to be able to play inclusion/exclusion. As we show, the children were also through issues of injustice in either real world or fantasy using play to imagine and develop more inclusive and realms, we need to establish trust among the players. diverse futures. Towards this end, we incorporate time each day for informal conversations where adults are able to check in with individual children and get to know each other’s “U.S. is the home of Mexicans too” interests and lives outside of school. Children have learned that this is a time when they can talk about their families In a project on mural arts in the spring of 2016, and the struggles they may be facing due to a sibling’s children explored the purposes of murals, and developed illness, a parent’s loss of a job, or they may share about group murals about issues of equity to which they wanted their friends and their plans for upcoming holidays. No to bring awareness. In the early stages of the process topics are off-limits and all topics are viewed as ways of when we were talking about and sketching initial ideas, an getting to appreciate the richness of the children’s lives. artistic, thoughtful, and energetic nine year-old male These unscripted conversations are met with care, concern, student named Camden developed two similar drawings. In and respect for the child and their experiences. They also the first, then-candidate Donald Trump was drawn provide the basis for curriculum design and speaking to a crowd and in the next, then-candidate Hillary responsiveness. Further, our emphasis on relational trust Clinton was accepting the presidency (see Figures 1 and establishes the groundwork for taking risks, exploring 2). There were elements of both fantasy and reality in the ideas, and generating new ways of approaching problems drawings in that they depicted a pressing and significant through play (Gee, 2007). issue of equity that was directly impacting the individual student and his family, but also referenced an imagined A key dimension of our approach to curriculum design future in which Clinton would win the election. In the first is that we plan for emergence. When we design project image, Donald Trump stands at a podium in a room with arcs, we have a vision in mind for how we anticipate that three rows of chairs, one window, and a door. His sharp the semester will progress. However, these projected arcs eyebrows are pointed downward and he wears a scowl, are exactly that - a projection. They are flexible and are with a speech bubble above his head that reads, “I want to constantly being renegotiated based on what children are be presint (president).” In the rows of seats, a single bringing to us. Each week, we reflect on what issues the person stands with a scared look on their face, and children are contending with in the real world, what responds “No Trump presint (president).” Written activities or topics they are or are not engaging with in the underneath the image are the words “Because Donald fantasy realm, and the relationships developing between Trump doesn’t have freedom.” When Camden presented players, all of which inform how we design for the next the image to a group of other children and Emily (the first week. The responsiveness of our designs is critical for author), he explained this statement further, saying that attending to what is consequential to the children and their Trump does not believe everyone should have freedom, communities. The guiding questions and learning goals for

RADICAL TEACHER 15 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.474 and that Mexicans should leave (fieldnotes, 3/9/16). In the As one of the older and veteran members of the club, next image, Clinton appears in the same setting, standing Camden had soon inspired a small group of children to act at the same podium. Her eyes are wide and she has a large out what they would want to say to Donald Trump if they smile on her face, as does the sole audience member, who were in the depicted scene. In the play world created by is saying, “You are presint.” The speech bubble above Camden, the other children were able to act “as if” they Clinton says, “Yaha” and the words underneath the image could speak back to Trump, which supported them in read “Because Hillary is going to give freedom to constructing themselves as agentive and powerful everybody.” In both images, the presidential candidates (Holland, Lachicotte, Skinner, & Cain, 1998). They tried out are drawn at twice the scale as the lone audience member, different approaches as different speakers with different and are fully clothed, whereas the lone audience member concerns. One seven year-old stated with a generosity of is a fully anonymous, small scale stick figure. The style in heart, “He needs to learn.” His older cousin nodded and which Camden depicted the characters in this imagined then, referencing the potential critical consequences to scene suggest that the candidates were more powerful their lives said that, “he wants to send all us Mexicans back than the audience member. Without a body, without a to Mexico.” They both began to chant quietly, “No Trump, face, the sole audience member is speaking, but without No Trump.” the impression of great weight. This, we might interpret as Referencing other forms of political resistance that the representing the child’s feelings in light of the election children had studied in addition to murals, Emily remarked process and the uncertainty of their future. that the chant sounded like something one would hear at a protest. This prompted some children to begin making actual signs to carry with them in the real world. One showed four stick figures holding hands with the word “freedom” beside it. Above them, the word “Trump” was written in bright orange marker, with a circle around it and an X going through the middle. In another sign, Trump’s name was written in large green capital letters with a red circle around it and a red line across it. Surrounding the central image were American flags, hearts, stars, and words including “home,” “equality,” “bad,” and “good.” The image also incorporated phrases that they had used in their play, such as “he needs to learn” and “everyone has the same heart” (see Figure 3). Another group of children began writing a letter with bulleted ideas representing what they would want say to him, including “US is the home of Mexicans too” and “People have the same hart (heart).”

FIGURE 1. CHILD’S DEPICTION OF A CAMPAIGN SPEECH BY THEN- CANDIDATE DONALD TRUMP.

FIGURE 3. CHILD’S PROTEST SIGN.

In this example, play was a direct response to a FIGURE 2. CHILD’S DEPICTION OF A PRESIDENTIAL ACCEPTANCE SPEECH prompt we, as designers and facilitators, developed and BY THEN-CANDIDATE HILLARY CLINTON. helped sustain with the children. It built on previous activities meant to bring in histories and stories of

confronting and overcoming oppression as a community. For instance, the children had participated in multiple read- alouds of the award winning children’s book Separate Is

Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez and Her Family’s Fight for

RADICAL TEACHER 16 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.474 Desegregation (Tonatiuh, 2014), which focused on a young conversations, where a repeated refrain was that Trump girl named Sylvia and her family’s legal battle for wants to send us back to Mexico. Yet, the children did not desegregation in California schools. The story resonated accept the narrative that was given. The children worked with the children who realized that they, like Sylvia, were together to dissect and disrupt his positioning of them as U.S. citizens who were not being treated as equals to other bad Mexicans. They openly resisted his bid for candidacy racial groups, namely Whites. We also supported the through the creation of protest imagery and vocabulary, as children in exploring how murals can be created to convey well as by calls to educate Trump as to who Mexicans really and organize political action. The focus on murals and the are. They worked collectively to develop a vision of a book were intentional ways of linking to Mexican cultural hopeful future in which Hillary wins the election. Beyond practices of resistance and political organizing. It was this win, the children also imagined that Trump could learn approximately nine months before the election and the “respect” and come to appreciate that “unique is good.” In topic of Donald Trump was bubbling up in small group this future, the children would be able to maintain their conversations. We knew and were expansive identities as being from both Mexico planning for the likelihood of helping and the United States. the children to articulate and develop their counternarratives or other responses to Trump’s racist and Determining Essential Goodness xenophobic campaign rhetoric. at the Border

In Camden’s original drawing as Like the previous example, the play scene well as in the play and the writing described in this section highlights how that it inspired, children brought in children engaged in interpretive reproduction messages they were receiving about as a means of examining what it means to themselves and their communities belong. In the previous example, the play that they were actively working to represented reality; they were directly make sense of. As children who contending with, responding to, and resisting identified largely as Mexican and Trump’s campaign rhetoric. In this example, American, Trump’s campaign the scene is in the fantasy realm, but one that speeches and social media posts were mirrors the issues that the children are spreading the message that these two SEPARATE IS NEVER EQUAL: SYLVIA MENDEZ AND HER FAMILY’S FIGHT FOR contending with during the Trump presidency. identities were mutually exclusive. DESEGREGATION BY DUNCAN TONATIUH, HARRY N. ABRAMS (2014). This generated questions of identity Approximately one year following the and belonging for the students. Who were they if they election of Donald Trump, we were nearing the end of a couldn’t be both? To which community did they belong? In project in which the children were designing and building falsely presenting these identifications as incompatible with their own cities in response to a perceived social problem one another, Trump’s campaign was directly contradicting or need. A nine year-old male student named Sam with a the children’s lived experiences and denying their very love of horror stories and a penchant for plaid flannel was existence as Mexican and American. Not only were these standing off to the side of the children gathered on the identities presented as incompatible with one another, but floor. He was looking towards the empty half of the they were each ascribed qualities and characteristics that cafeteria, and declared out loud that it was heaven, and resulted in value-laden caricatures of the good American asked if Emily (Author 1) would like to explore it. He and the bad Mexican. Mexicans were depicted as villainous, walked her through what he saw in his heaven, including as criminals who were sneaking into a place where they did clouds and angels, but told her that it could be anything not belong, so that they could hurt, steal from, and she wanted it it to be, adding that “it’s most like heaven if displace white Americans, who were alternatively you close your eyes.” She asked if she could enter if she positioned as innocent and heroic. Entirely ignoring our was still alive, and Sam said yes, but only for six minutes, history as colonizers, policies and physical boundaries such after which point she would be unable to return to the as the proposed Wall were explained as necessary in order living world. To make the distinction between worlds clear, to preserve the innocence of Americans and prevent them he declared that he was going to make a gate, which would from falling victim to the deviant behavior of the usurping be called “Heaven’s Gate.” Mexicans. As he began gathering materials and draping blankets The children engaged in interpretive reproduction to over the open space between two cafeteria tables, other respond to these unjust characterizations in their play, and children became curious, and came over to ask questions ultimately, to assert their right to belong. In their and contribute to the scene. One child asked if everyone illustrations, writing, acting, and conversation, they could go to heaven, and Sam thoughtfully replied that yes, presented the conditions of their current reality. Donald if you are “essentially good.” He continued to explain that Trump wanted to be president, and in the process of his you cannot come in if you are “essentially bad,” and campaigning, he described the children and their families pointed to a different corner of the room, which he referred as interlopers who were trying to hurt good, white to as “the banished lands.” Americans. They highlighted this reality in the physical Back in heaven, an eight year-old female student with portrayal of Trump as large and imposing, with heavily a keen eye for detail declared herself the gatekeeper, and drawn eyebrows and a scowl, and in their surrounding began constructing a chain link rope out of paper, a

RADICAL TEACHER 17 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.474 costume that included a long, shiny green robe, and a staff allowed to enter, mirroring the uncertainty that many of with a hook on the end so she could open and close the the children’s extended family members were facing as entrance rope. Consequential questions began to emerge immigrants without documentation. about what it means to be essentially good or bad, and Within minutes of designating heaven as a community who gets to decide. The children thought God should for the “essentially good,” a place for those who were decide, and elected a female pre-service teacher with long, turned away from heaven for not being “good enough” was dark hair to be the first to play God, and constructed a created. The “banished lands” were located just outside of robe for her to wear. One energetic seven year-old said he the gate to heaven, and its name was significant. It was would build a computer system in which your goodness or not labeled simply as hell, which is commonly considered badness is recorded, and a construction-minded female to be the antithesis of heaven, but instead referenced student interested in technology built a hand scanner to banishment, a process of being removed from and expedite the process of locating your records. All of the forbidden from returning to a place in which you were children who applied for entry to Heaven used the hand formerly welcome. Again, this process of being forcibly scanner and the computer system deemed them “good.” removed from, and unable to return to, a place that one With this evaluation, they received a yellow ticket labeled considers to be their home, resonated with the children’s with the words “Heaven” and “yes” or “no” checkboxes, fears about who belongs in America and what might lead to with an X in the yes box. They were then permitted to go banishment. What actions or behaviors could result in to the gate, where they turned over their ticket to the removal from the community, if any? What does it mean to gatekeeper. One particularly enthusiastic student named be a community if your membership is contingent upon José sought to seek out an answer to the question, can you continued adherence to preferred norms and ways of be kicked out of heaven? He shouted nonsense words and being? What would it take to be banished from home? ran from group to group, eventually stealing a pretend bottle of holy water, labeled with its imagined Gatorade In their play, the children demonstrated their deep and sponsorship, in order to garner the attention of God and informed awareness of Mexican and Mexican-Americans’ God’s assistant Sam. They asked him over to a table and uncertain future in the U.S. The children’s play reproduced they spoke with eyes closed, where José explained that he the situations and constraints they and their families were just wanted to drink the holy water. God, nodding, said facing. At the same time, the children’s play was also that she knew José was “innocent” and asked him to try transformative. In their version, everyone was approved not to disrupt the other members of heaven before telling for entrance to heaven, determined to be essentially good. him how much she cared for him and everyone in heaven. While the banished lands existed, they were devoid of any For today at least, it was determined that heaven was not inhabitants. If your paperwork was lost between when you a place that you could be removed from. By the end of the received your approval to enter Heaven and when you afternoon, all but one small group of students had presented it at the gate, you could simply return to the abandoned the towns and cities they had been building to computer and hand scanner and repeat the process. assist in the creation of Heaven’s Gate. They were deeply Heaven was an inclusive community, and while it remains engaged in a collective sensemaking experience, as they to be seen if there is anything that can get you banished built a community and negotiated who belonged and under from heaven, it was clear that the immediate consequence what conditions. for causing a perceived disruption was not eviction, but a conversation with the chosen leader, God. Although Trump’s name was never explicitly stated, the parallels Discussion to the proposed border wall, and the characterizations of the As educators, it is imperative for us to take seriously the issues with which our students are contending. In the Mexicans and Americans on either current political moment, when elements of students’ side, were difficult to ignore. identities and experience are at an increased risk of being dismissed by the President himself, this is all the more Although Trump’s name was never explicitly stated, necessary. Young children should not be exempt from the parallels to the proposed border wall, and the these conversations for the sake of preserving their characterizations of the Mexicans and Americans on either presumed innocence. Children are acutely aware of their side, were difficult to ignore. Upon its creation, heaven was surroundings and are working to make sense of the largely immediately designated as a space for individuals who are unspoken rules that govern society. When we ignore this “essentially good,” mirroring the campaign’s presentation reality, it harms children from non-dominant communities of white Americans. Like the U.S., it was positioned as a the most. They are positioned as being too young to desirable place to be, and as such, it and the people within discuss the very injustices they may be experiencing. its borders, needed to be protected from possible When we do not provide children space to discuss what infiltration. The gate defined the borders of heaven and a they are experiencing or seeing, they are deprived of the gatekeeper was posted to secure it from unapproved entry. opportunity to process their experience, effectively An elaborate technological system was developed to marginalizing them a second time. enforce border security and ensure that only people whose In our examination of the role of play in exploring documentation verified their essential goodness would be issues of equity and justice at EPIC, we examined when

RADICAL TEACHER 18 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.474 play occurred, and what topics or themes were being the real implications it held for their lives, and the validity explored. We found that while children’s play sometimes of their cognitive and emotional responses, even as formed as a direct response to the projects that we had children. At EPIC, drawing primarily served as a means of intentionally designed, there were other moments when taking up and responding to real-life issues of inequity and children’s play occurred in spite of our planned activities. injustice. Dramatic play, on the other hand, provided a way For example, the Heaven’s Gate play scene emerged when for students to take up the same issues at a distance, students were supposed to be working on building one part through the lens of fantasy. In their dramatic play, children of the city they had designed in response to a perceived responded to the same themes as those who were making social injustice. Instead, Sam began an exploration of what posters, but in a fantasy world. In both drawing and play, heaven is that other children became intrigued by, and children were attending to consequential, equity-oriented, they began abandoning their projects to support his. issues, most notably the question of what it means to These moments of resistance were informative, as the belong, and who gets to decide. However, in the case of children signaled that they had consequential issues to dramatic play, the question of belonging was placed in a explore, but that they were proposing a different new and different context – that of an imagined heaven. framework for its exploration. In those moments, it was This allowed children to experiment with different our job as educators to listen to what they were telling us outcomes without real-life consequences. José could try they needed to investigate, and the means by which they out different behaviors and ways of being to see what needed to do it. While this could be labeled as a form of would and would not result in his dismissal from heaven, resistance, our positioning of children as experts on their knowing that when the play began again, he could return own lives reframed it as a form of inquiry and and begin again without consequence. His condition was communication. impermanent, in a way that it is not in real life when it comes to enforcement of discriminatory immigration In the semesters leading up to, during, and following practices. It is important that both of these activities – the election, children’s play centered on explorations of fantasy or dramatic play and art or, more specifically, identity, belonging, and what it means to be a deserving drawing – were used in conjunction with one another, as member of a community. The journey for each child was drawing was taken up predominantly as a direct response unique, where some held strongly to one emotional to injustice by older students, and dramatic play was taken response throughout the stages of the election, and others up as a way to investigate injustice in a fantasy realm by cycled through anger, sadness, frustration, and our younger students. Play and imagination were empowerment. Overwhelmingly, the children responded to distinctive features of both, in that children considered, and resisted Trump’s positioning of them in generous and investigated, experimented with, and advocated for agentic ways, simultaneously rejecting his negative different possible futures. characterizations of them as Mexicans and creating space for teaching him about who they truly were. Contrary to his While our intention in sharing our process of design characterizations of them, the children positioned Trump as and reflection is to provide a model others might use when capable of change and transformation. He was simply considering how to approach issues of inequity and misinformed and “needed to learn,” and they expressed injustice with young children, we also want to acknowledge their willingness to teach him. the very real constraints that are placed on classroom teachers. We know that we were able to immerse ourselves so thoroughly in children’s playworlds and our investigation Children used both dramatic play of them because our afterschool program was a site for and art as means of responding to both equity-oriented teaching and research. We know that Trump’s campaign as well as to this kind of flexibility is rare, particularly with the emphasis explore broader questions of what it on standardization and accountability in current means to live in a pluralistic educational reform movements. Our hope is that even in society. the most constrained environment where children’s time, attention, and behavior are highly regulated, we as educators can look for moments when children’s play Children used both dramatic play and art as means of cannot be quelled, when it resists containment, and responding to Trump’s campaign as well as to explore provides insight into the issues of equity children are broader questions of what it means to live in a pluralistic contending with. If we are to resist Trumpism through society. Drawing provided a means of taking up and transformative education, we need to listen to, honor, and responding directly to Trump’s characterizations of create space for children’s own language of resistance – Mexicans, as well as to voice their support for other play and imagination. candidates, such as Hillary Clinton, whose message they deemed to be more inclusive. The children took a number of actions to respond directly to the messages they were receiving about themselves and their place in the country. These included designing and creating posters that advocated for a particular candidate, responding to a candidate whose views positioned them negatively, and encouraging the adults in their life to vote. Creating these posters acknowledged both their awareness of the issue,

RADICAL TEACHER 19 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.474 James, A. (2009). Agency. In J. Qvortrup, W. Corsaro, & M. Honig Works Cited (Eds.). The Palgrave handbook of childhood studies (pp. 34- 45). New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Casteñada, C. (2010). Figurations: Child, bodies, worlds. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Lindqvist, G. (1995). The aesthetics of play: A didactic study of play and culture in preschools. Uppsala, Sweden: Uppsala Christensen, P. & James, A. (2008). Research with children: University. Perspectives and practices (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge. Lindqvist, G. (2001). When small children play: How adults Cole., M., & The Distributed Literacy Consortium. (2006). The fifth dramatize and children create meaning. Early Years 21(1), 7- dimension: An after-school program built on diversity. New 14. York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation. Paley, V.G. (1984). Boys and girls: Superheroes in the doll corner. Corsaro, W. (2005). The sociology of childhood (2nd ed.). Thousand Chicago, IL: University of Chicago. Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press. Paley, V.G. (1999). The kindness of children. Cambridge, MA: Davies, B. (2003). Frogs and snails and feminist tales: Preschool Harvard University Press. children and gender. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, Inc. Paley, V.G. (2004). A child’s work: The importance of fantasy play. Dyson, A. H. (1997). Writing superheroes: Contemporary Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. childhood, popular culture, and classroom literacy. New York: Teachers College Press. Paley, V.G. (2010) The boy on the beach: Building community through play. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Emerson, R.M., Fretz, R.I., & Shaw, L.L. (2011). Writing ethnographic fieldnotes (2nd ed.) Chicago, IL: University of Piaget, J. (1969). The Psychology of the child. New York, NY: Basic Chicago Press. Books.

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Freeman, Q., & Jurow, A.S. (in press). Becoming a more disruptive Wohlwend, K.E. (2012). The boys who would be princesses: Playing teacher. For inclusion in E. Mendoza, B. Kirshner, & K. with identity intertexts in Disney Princess transmedia. Gender Gutiérrez (Eds.) Power, equity, and (re)design: Bridging and Education. learning and critical theories in learning ecologies for youth, Information Age. Wohlwend, K. E. (2009). Damsels in discourse : Girls consuming and producing identity texts through Disney Princess play. Gallas, K. (1998). “Sometimes I Can Be Anything”: Power, gender, Reading Research Quarterly, 44(1), 57–83. and identity in a primary classroom. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Woodhead, M. (2009). Child development and the development of childhood. In J. Galman, S. (2015). Mischief-making of one kind and another: Unruliness and resistance in rural preschoolers’ free play. Qvortrup, W. Corsaro, & M. Honig (Eds.). The Palgrave handbook of Ethnography and Education 10(3), 310-324. childhood studies. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 46-61.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

This journal is published by the University Library System of the University of Pittsburgh as part of its D-Scribe Digital Publishing Program, and is cosponsored by the University of Pittsburgh Press.

RADICAL TEACHER 20 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.474 ISSN: 1941-0832

Poem Kill and Drill

by Jennifer Hernandez

JENNIFER HERNANDEZ, PHOTO COURTESY OF AUTHOR

RADICAL TEACHER 21 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.528

Kill and Drill

Today I actively monitor a standardized test. MAP, NAEP, ACCESS, MCA, a new one every month. I must walk around the classroom, pace like a tiger in a cage. I must be able to see the students’ Chromebook screens at all times. I must not read test items aloud. I must not explain test items, even if students don’t speak English. I must not translate test items. I must not give my opinion if students say that the test items are missing information or answer options. I must not give students any encouragement or tell them to try their best. I must not look directly at test items. I must not take pictures of the test items. I must not use my cell phone in any way. I must not have my cell phone in the room. I must not check my email. I must not be on my computer (except to perform test proctor functions). I must not grade papers. I must not plan lessons. I must not read books or articles. I must not allow students to speak, gesture, leave their seats, or walk to the restroom without an escort. I must be prepared to lock the door, turn off the lights, wordlessly direct my students to crouch, backs against the wall behind the wooden cabinet, not speaking, hearts beating, anxiety screaming in our ears, even when we know it’s a drill – it is a drill, isn’t it? – until we get an “all clear”. Good thing we have so much practice sitting still and quiet.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

This journal is published by the University Library System of the University of Pittsburgh as part of its D-Scribe Digital Publishing Program, and is cosponsored by the University of Pittsburgh Press.

RADICAL TEACHER 22 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.528 ISSN: 1941-0832

Radical Digital Media Literacy in a Post-Truth Anti-Trump Era

by Alexandra Juhasz

RACE AND RACISM POETRY WORKSHOP, PHOTO COURTESY OF AUTHOR

RADICAL TEACHER 23 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.524

have engaged, over the duration of the Trump processes as I continue to try to figure out what to do administration, in a series of linked pedagogical about the crisis of fake news, given what I know (and do I experiments: one woman’s pedagogic resistance, albeit not!) as longtime scholar, activist, and educator focusing aligned with many others through making poetry together on activist, and also fake, media. I have made and taught by way of digital media literacy. These have been acts of about radical media for nearly thirty years; at one time, I engaged, enraged intellectual citizenship in three parts: 1. thought about (and made use of) fake documentary as a an online digital media primer about fakenews, potential tool for challenging identity, truth, and 3 #100hardtruths-#fakenews1, produced over the first 100 power. Arming communities with “media literacy” (whether days of the administration; 2. nine Fake News Poetry they be college students, AIDS activists, QPOCs, or youth Workshops held over the spring semester of 2018 making poets from LA) has always been part of my process: use of that online primer (these are each co-facilitated by sharing strategies to read, make, distribute, and challenge poets in different locations and communities), and 3. an both our own media and the images and ideas circulated in action plan to further mobilize the primer, poems, and large volume by corporate media. The powerful linking of workshops to a scale larger than my own personal social media and fake news—particularly in how it justifies pedagogy, this still in process. and enables real world violence—has thrown these tried- and-true methods, analyses, and beliefs into crisis. These experiments are first and foremost acts of civic engagement qua pedagogy, art-making, and community- Thus, this piece tracks my movements in a still- building. They are organized to create and make use of forming response to rethinking and remaking digital media responsive formats, processes, and places to better literacy. It begins with my “resolution toward radical digital express our keen knowledge, concern, and curiosity about media literacy in a post-truth era,” a short piece of writing a host of inter-related phenomena and in response to the that travelled in December 2017 from my blog, to a video, 4 current crisis of fake news: self, community, and the to a scholarly meeting, to a podcast, to finish here. The world; the fake and real and true; our own power and that resolution’s movement across registers, platforms, and of (social) media. The workshops allow small groups of audiences evidences one strategy of this radical pedagogy: people to learn and listen together. We think about and testing and trading formats, vernaculars, and communities then communicate our own internet truths in a shared so as to be responsive and inventive during this moment of 5 context where we take on the permissions allowed by increasing representational crisis. How do we reach and poetic license: vernaculars and modes of being outside of teach different learners differently making the most of the internet-speak and our internet-home. This is the many media formats available to us while staying critical of pedagogy: engaging small groups of participants in local, them? Here, I offer a brief description of some of the nine embodied art making about their individual and community Fake News Poetry Workshops that I held in the Spring of truths about social media and fake news. The process of 2018 attempting to teach and write newly. The third and making poetry, together, in situ, concerning what we know next part of the project, about to begin in Summer 2018, and want to share with others is the key product (over the will be to conceive and enact a considered use of these poetry itself): fake news poetry workshops as radical poems and the primer given my primary commitment to digital media literacy centers working together to model better understanding and undoing fake news. better conversation, interaction, understanding and communication in our post-truth anti-Trump era. do not be distracted from the truth 2 Don’t Look, By Kiy Gentle that you make with your own body

Shhhhh Solidity is a useful illusion can you hear that It gets us through the day I think you’ve made them angry Shhhhh solidity (gets us) resists us Don’t look, they’re watching us tectonic assurance is fragile ground Wanting us to keep believing the truth is the emptiness in the middle of the I heard a survivor type once that skepticism is atom just a side affect of reality the truth is the impressionability of matter, of us, the truth is the space we fight to shape But then again I haven’t heard from her lately -M. Astley6

Let’s just keep going Resolution toward radical digital media Stopping is a place of growth 7 And when they feel they are getting small literacy in a post-truth era They teach us new ways to survive Given that scholars and makers of documentary, My quest for useful formats, compelling processes, visual anthropology, journalism, and autobiography have other kids of words and healing engagements—in the time been investigating the construction, forms, and circulation of Trump and Trump’s time of social media-powered of reality-based truth claims in their fields of practice since deception—is part of my own ongoing education as the invention of these disciplines. educator and media activist. Here, I share some of my own

RADICAL TEACHER 24 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.524 Given that these forms vary across time, culture, responsive, thoughtful and focused on educating about, media, convention, and discipline. and working against, the enduring and complex crisis at hand by experimenting (with others) with new formats and Given that teachers have attempted, for as long as practices for radical digital media literacy. such claims have been made, to educate about the traditions, forms, and conditions that produce, authorize, I will work with poets in their local communities to circulate, and challenge mediated truth claims because adapt, transform, extend, translate and all-in-all make such a “media literacy” is closely connected to citizenship, more usable my original “online digital media primer.” I will power, and knowledge. experiment with others in place-based, local, embodied poetry workshops that begin with my #100hardtruths- Given that the mobilization of powerful, loose, and #fakenews primer as itself a set of resources toward new adapting theories and practices of mediated truth claims, forms of radical digital media literacy. In so doing, we under the nomenclature “fake news,” took by surprise even will engage together in place-based, people-made, word- the most committed practitioners, scholars, and educators bound expressions of individual and community truths signaled above. about social media, fake news, and post-truth outside of Let it hereby be resolved that our previous practices the indexical, evidentiary traditions that currently bind us of “digital media literacy,” while useful and relevant for the and the technologies that are built upon, reinforce, and previous epoch, are no longer equipped for our emergent monetize such expression. reality.

Radical digital media literacy is required in a In an ABSOLUT world/ Notes on the real thing post-truth anti-Trump era. by Angus Walker Given that I was just one within a vast community of Sifting transcendence on the shop- scholars, media makers, teachers, and students, over time floor, max out on red and across disciplines, who drew on “anti-essentialist carpet talk in the latest spirit theories to show the relationship between power, engagement, lacquer lips rainbow and knowledge, and the construction of truth,” particularly in say “equality”. No really say my earlier work on the productive possibilities of fake it. documentaries (in the 1990s8), and the insidious, definitive Eyes-closed dance: a platform for silent “increasingly unproductive” dangers of the destabilization withdrawal, redeeming chaebol of the fake/real binary as definitive of the forms and payouts down in pledge- 9 platforms of internet culture, most definitively of videos on making, cover(t), nothing YouTube10 (in the 2000s). When our current president and the broader culture became fixated on the problem of “fake to hide – Moon smears refresh – news,” especially during the first 100 days of the new official sponsors of Seoul sunrise administration when this felt the most rabid and bloated dangle need over waiting. Distorted marches shape destabilizing, I felt compelled and qualified to act in this bottle and crop time of confusion, despair, and self-criticism. barriers, fermented.12

I pledged: “For 100 days, aligning and twinned with the new President’s opening timeline, to blog every day about fake news and in so doing produce an online primer of digital media literacy.”11

Given that my painful if productive effort of informed, desperate citizenship eventually took the form of a digital tower of 100 blog posts, #100hardtruths-#fakenews, each cell holding either my efforts or those of a great many others across a range of fields who were also contemporaneously attempting to understand, combat, respond to, and teach about the crisis of fake news as it was unfolding.

Given that this high and vast monolith itself holds an immensity of deep efforts, inter-disciplinary knowledge, diverse resources and thoughtful tools but that, in this form, these many useful things remain hard to navigate and needing of literacy efforts in their own right so as to make them the most useful for the many people interested in this crisis.

Let it hereby be resolved that I will transform my own preliminary efforts at “an online primer of digital media literacy” to become something even more useful,

RADICAL TEACHER 25 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.524 Fake News Poetry Workshops as radical digital media literacy

Here are five alternatives #hardtruths that I hold as self-evident:

1. fake news r us: we are implicated by, produce, and circulate this crisis whenever we study, teach, or try to fix it.

2. virality is virility: a potent mix of internet- fueled falsity, masculine grandiosity, and resulting real-world bellicosity undergirds fake news and our efforts to understand it.13

3. art answers to fake questions: departures from evidence-based, indexically-linked practices into realms of truth-telling verifiable by different logics might get us out of the he- said/he-said rabbit-hole where we currently find ourselves.

4. our internet truths trump media lies: we must name, share, and honor our own lived experiences within social media as another form of honesty in desperate times. Let’s first do this offline, together where we live, work, struggle or learn.

5. heed the poet’s call: poetry, a time-honored FIGURE 1: FROM DEVIL'S DYKE COLLECTIVE word-based form of truth-telling outside the logics of indexical mediation might be one Operating System, “an [online] equitable space for art well-honed literacy practice well-suited to this access” of which Lynne is the creative director and founder. crisis. You can read those details, and many more poems, there.15 Using these five hardtruths as both motivation and preliminary action plan, I embarked on a series of nine Resist how we are framed16 poetry workshops in the Spring of 2018. I worked with digital artists, community college students, queer media thoughts studies scholars and artists, poets, teachers, professors, are from the mind We believe no one should have to face a and a youth poetry troupe14; we wrote poetry about our mental health problem local internet truths felt and lived in New London CT, alone Queens NYC, Toronto Ontario, and Brighton England. In Feel lonely as I seek truth England I engaged with a classroom of undergrads studying writing. Their teacher, Sam Solomon, led the truth17 session. Later that week I found myself writing with an already extant feminist collective, Devil’s Dyke, that made Despite their many local and personnel differences, use of their own practices of facilitation and power-sharing what the workshops share is a set of opening exercises, to organize the session. often led by me, where participants reveal “truths” about In May, I participated in three workshops: one, themselves and the world, tying to understand where these facilitated by the women of color poets, Margaret Rhee and might be found, learned, and shared with others, how they Chet’la Sebree, about race and racism online. This might be verified, and which technologies might play a workshop was peopled by interested local poets. A week part: from the digital to the family; from photos on a wall later, I participated in a workshop focusing on somatic in a house to those on an Instagram feed; from the body expression led by the artist, scholar, and publisher, Lynne to its notarized governmental records. In these opening DeSilva-Johnson, and then quickly raced cross-country to conversations, we always seem to learn just how leery we another where we built a collective exquisite corpse poem actually are online, how guarded, how distrustful, and not with media scholars led by the video artist Orr Menirom. I just of fake news, or of Trump, but of ourselves. We learn could go on about the different approaches, tactics, how good it feels to admit and disclose these facts, with interests and outcomes of each workshop—as diverse as others, about ourselves, online: how we are always there are the poets and the communities in which we engaged— and ever facing and guarding against deception. We then but this work has already been done in another context: take some time for people to engage with the primer, each poet has written a blog post published on the finding one “hardtruth” that resonates with ideas already

RADICAL TEACHER 26 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.524 now live in their minds from the previous conversation. is—an online, well-designed receptacle holding a great deal This respects each participant’s personal knowledge while of information—can be used for teaching and learning, but taking into account that there is still much more to be its online form leaves it (and us) complicit in the larger learned about these issues, and some of it can be found in problem: mining and getting lost in digital minutiae the primer. We ask them to find something in the primer that speaks to them: a hardtruth or some writing or art. From this, and the conversation, a poem might be inspired. Then, my collaborating poets take over and share other, linked resources—readings, poems, writing prompts or exercises— and then, poems might be written. Some of these are shared with the project. Others stay private.

Call the man of the year a liar, Mika Judge

Gladly! I would be first in line. From the first moment of his presidency, he inflated a scraggly cloud to mammoth proportions. It was the largest audience to witness an inauguration, period. He is beloved, he is the prophet of all things true, period. Some people are haters--sad!--but those who know best know him, period.

There are a lot of small things about him, but his lies are enormous. like his crowds. like his supporters. like his heart. like the coal mine he’s reopening right under our feet--America, how does black lung feel? FIGURE 2: FROM TORONTO WORKSHOP

How does it feel being cheated by a cheesy smile (written by others), using digital formats for exchange balanced on an emergency red tie? How did a small loan of a million dollars become (which tend to get nasty or stupid), engaging in digital the ruining of billions of lives? ways of being (which move us toward isolation or self- How does it feel to be led by the lovechild of hatred or doubt), all the while seeking out short-term racist comments on Facebook and unimaginable (word- or image-bound) fixes to problems that can’t be power? thought or answered in this way.

America, get your heads out of your echo Activity alert at 5:27 p.m.: gather 13 social chambers. network comments. By Kyle Booten There is more to politics than what you want to believe. There is more to know than what they 1. I used to spend half my life chasing networks. show you. Now with YouTube, I’ve swapped that time for Do not mistake easily obtainable for true. Do not time to create. mistake your agreement for divine approval. 2. Started from 0, now I’m at 19k. Next I’ll be at 100k. Where there is doubt, there is still hope. 3. …even a whit the beauty she leaves behind Period.18 like her eternal, up to now, shadow. 4. Dude I have no idea how I got here but I’m glad I did While we do seek and make poems, as I’ve been 5. Only Beethoven and Bach come close. sharing throughout, even better yet we find ourselves in 6. Context: a knightship is a glider (a structure community-based conversations about the truth of our own that translates itself across the Life grid internet experiences communicated and shared with periodically) artistic license: a poetry solution for resistance, knowledge [ran out of time] production, and better literacy given the truth of fake news Accumulating, and even sharing information, can be a in the Age of Trumpism. step towards pedagogy, but only as a resource. Rather than chasing networks, we need time and place to create Conclusions: From online primer to in- them, together. person poetry to what? The poems, and processes, collected from the workshops and shared here are in this vein: compliments Over the first 100 days of the Trump administration, I to, extensions of, contributions about, exclamations built an online media primer. It held an enormous number concerning, thoughtful deliberations focused upon the of resources made by myself and others during this time. I deluge of digital information, and experience, about fake quickly came to believe, however, that the primer, as it news (including the primer). While I work with poets to

RADICAL TEACHER 27 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.524 teach from the primer, and encourage more writing from its ideas, the participants in the workshops also understand Works Cited that they too are part of the larger pedagogic (and political) project: talking and listening to each other about Ahmed, Sara. “Affective Economies.” Social Text 79, Vol. our truths; making poetic sense of our thoughts and 22, No. 2, 2004, pp. 117-139. feeling; flexible claim-making that accounts for listening Brandzel, Amy L and Jigna Desai. “Race, Violence, and and learning. Terror: The Cultural Defensibility of Heteromasculine Citizenship in the Virginia Tech Massacre and the Don Imus Affair.” Journal of Asian American Studies, Vol. 11, No. 1, 2008, pp. 61-85.

California State University, Sacramento. “Our Students and Faculty by the Numbers.” www.csus.edu/about/. Accessed 15 November 2017.

The Combahee River Collective. “A Black Feminist Statement,” Feminist Theory Reader: Local and Global Perspectives, edited by Carole R. McCann and Seung- Kyung Kim, Routledge, 2003, pp. 163-171.

“Democracy Now! Special Broadcast from the Women’s March on Washington.” January 21, 2017. www.democracynow.org/live/watch_inauguration_201 7_womens_march_live. Accessed 30 January 2018.

Lipsitz, George. “How Whiteness Works: Inheritance, Wealth, and Health.” The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Benefit from Identity Politics, Temple University Press, 2006, pp. 105-117.

Lorde, Audre. “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House.” This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, edited by Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa, Kitchen Table Women of Color Press, 1983, pp. 98-101.

Mele, Christopher and Patrick Healy. “‘Hamilton’ Had Some Unscripted Lines for Pence. Trump Wasn’t Happy.” The New York Times, November 19, 2016, www.nytimes.com/2016/11/19/us/mike-pence- hamilton.html. Accessed January 15, 2018. FIGURE 3: ONE OF MY OWN POETIC REFLECTIONS, TORONTO WORKSHOP Moraga, Cherríe. “La Güera.” This Bridge Called My Back:

Writings by Radical Women of Color, edited by Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa, Kitchen Table Women of Color Press, 1983, pp. 27-34.

Oparah, Julia Chinyere. “Celling Black Bodies: Black Women in the Global Prison Industrial Complex.” Feminist Review 80 (2005): 162-179.

Richie, Beth E. “Introduction.” Arrested Justice: Black Women, Violence, and America’s Prison Nation, New York University Press, 2012, pp. 1-22.

Notes

1http://scalar.usc.edu/nehvectors/100hardtruths- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommerfakenews/indexcial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

This journal is published by the University Library System of the University of Pittsburgh as part of its D-Scribe Digital Publishing Program, and is cosponsored by the University of Pittsburgh Press.

RADICAL TEACHER 28 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.524

2 From Get Lit Workshop, LA, CA, March 2018.

3 Alexandra Juhasz and Jesse Lerner, eds., F is for Phony: Fake Documentary and Truth’s Undoing (Minnesota, 2001). 10 Learning from YouTube (MIT Press, 2011): 4 “Resolution toward radical digital media literacy in a post- https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/learning-youtube. truth era” was first presented on my blog, MEDIA PRAXIS, 11 “My Pledge,” February 18, 2017: on November 20, 2017: http://scalar.usc.edu/nehvectors/100hardtruths- https://aljean.wordpress.com/2017/11/20/resolution- fakenews/about. toward-radical-digital-media-literacy-in-a-post-truth-era- draft. It appeared as a video with the same name on 12 From University of Sussex workshop, March 2018. YouTube: 13 Alexandra Juhasz, “Trump’s Alpha Male Posturing was https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLcIN0RfQWc. The Made for our Social Media,” DAME, September 2017: video was presented in my absence at the panel “Ex-Post- https://shar.es/1VXnu5. Facto? The Anthropology of Media and Journalism in a Post-Truth Era,” at the American Anthropological 14 My nine collaborators were: 1. Kyle Booten at the Aassociation meetings on December 1, 2017. This was Ammerman Symposium on Art and Technology, New recorded and transformed into the podcast “The London, CT (February 2018); 2. Kelly Grace Thomas, with Anthropology of Media in a Post Truth Era,” by K. Sacco for the Get Lit Players, in LA, CA (March 2018); 3. TL Cowan, AnthroPod: https://culanth.org/fieldsights/1276-the- with queer feminist scholars and artists in Toronto, Ontario anthropology-of-media-in-a-post-truth-era. (March 2018); 4. Sam Soloman with undergraduates at the University of Sussex, England (March 2018); 5. Linda Paoli 5 The project is also available as a paper “companion” that and Claudia Treacher with the Dyke’s Ditch Poetry can be accessed as a PDF or on paper: Collective in Brighton, England (March 2018); 6. Lisa http://www.blurb.com/b/8446148-100hardtruths- Cohen with three professors and their distinct classes fakenews. I first produced this version for the art show, (poetry, intro to writing, a poetry club) at LaGuardia Manifesto: A Moderate Proposal, at the Pitzer Art Galleries, Community College, Queens, NY; 7. Margaret Rhee and January 2018. It allows for the #100hardtruths to be Chet’la Sebree with local poets, Brooklyn NY (May 2018); something a person can hold to read. 8. Lynne DeSilva-Johnson, with local poets in Los Angeles, 6 From workshop at the University of Sussex, March 2018. CA (May 2018); 9. Orr Menirom, with participants at the Digital EngAGEment Conference, CUNY, Manhattan, NY 7 https://aljean.wordpress.com/2017/11/20/resolution- (May 2018) toward-radical-digital-media-literacy-in-a-post-truth-era- draft. 15 10 Tries, 100 Poems, the Operating System: https://medium.com/the-operating-system/10-tries-100- 8 See the film I produced and starred in, The Watermelon poems-alexandra-juhasz-field-notes-fake-news-poetry- Woman (Cheryl Dunye, 1996) and the book I co-edited workshops-as-radical-ee2408808403. with Jesse Lerner about it and other fake documentaries, F is for Phony. 16http://scalar.usc.edu/nehvectors/100hardtruths- fakenews/86-resist-how-we-are-framed 9 “The Increasingly UnProductive Fake,” No More Potlucks 4 (July-August 2009): http://nomorepotlucks.org. 17 Exquisite Corpse Poem from NYC, May 2018.

18 From Get Lit, LA, March 2018.

RADICAL TEACHER 29 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.524 ISSN: 1941-0832

The #shitholes Syllabus: Undoing His(Story)

by Clelia O. Rodríguez

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF AUTHOR

RADICAL TEACHER 30 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.456

“La madre tierra nos da de comer. Hay que respetarla About This Course y cuidarla como a los seres que viven en ella.” -- My grandfather The genesis of this hypothetical higher learning syllabus is to get down to lower terrains where a) geography reads like the anatomy of dissected cadavers, “I am talking of millions of men who have been b) politics smells like forgotten infected pus, and c) history skillfully injected with fear, inferiority complexes, is blended eternally with the same DNA. It is an outline trepidation, servility, despair, abasement.” -- Aimé towards an ocean that is far from the Pacific as it makes Césaire, Discours sur le Colonialisme unpleasant bodily contact with the feet of learners coming from the privileged North. The ubiquitous nature of poetry makes this curriculum one that stretches more than “You have to learn to love yourself before you can love 100,000 miles, exceeding the average length of an adult’s me or accept my loving.” -- Audre Lorde, “Eye to blood vessels. It is a program that is expected to be Eye: Black Women, Hatred, and Anger” in Sister destroyed the very first day of class. Last but not least, it is Outsider: Essays and Speeches a review to undo viewing based on regulated teachings of what #1 to #45 have proclaimed as notions of Truth as opposed to eradicated stories. The couple to honor our So I guess decolonial love cannot be defined, journey is: imperialism and racism. Other guests who have conceptualized, described... it’s like the first smile that’s confirmed their presence so far are: violence and culture. drawn in my mother’s face when she hears her favorite The making of this syllabus crawled out from a bolero after waking up from a recurring nightmare caused wounded fetus. One that was alerted before it came out by trauma, it’s the rain that washes away remnants of that shit was real out in the world. Its delivery dates back deadly encounters remembered by an invisible rainbow, it’s to broken moons waiting to be repaired. The latest one, as the illusion of maracas dismantling endless silence, it’s the a case study, results from a toxic explosion marked under memory of my fingers tapping my legs as I imagine happy the radar of #45 under the red-blue-white banner that has drums making their way from a nearby beach, it’s the to do with making something “great” again. The implication possibility of forgiving those who uprooted us from our of #shitholes in relationship to immigrants and non-first- homes after being censored from saying goodbye, it’s world-countries by #45 begs for a critical look at the adapting the beat of my wings to capture a balanced take- mirroring effect required by those seeking democracy. The off during a storm, it’s caressing gently the religious explosive effect of his words triggered transgenerational markers without wanting to break them, it’s finding joy in flows of anger marked by layers of overt violence inscribed anger, it’s breathing hope when others see danger in my in ink by citizens of the free world. The level of absurdity, skin color, it’s pollinating forgiveness as a remedy to heal convenient amnesia, and casual forgetfulness showcased colonial wounds, it’s washing toxic tongues with the power by #45 in his language derives from decades of regulated of fire guarded by ancestral wisdom, it’s saluting the sun and military violence seeking to construct the optical inside me, it’s a snail playing hide-and-seek without ever illusion of greatness, choosing to ignore the #shitholes being found by predators, it’s running freely without underneath their soles. dragging the weight of fear, it’s letting my sorrow take a deserving break in the weaving power of my grandfather’s petate, it’s taking a leap of faith in the currents of a clean Course Description river knowing I’m surrounded by creatures whose spirits protect me, it’s letting my lungs scream my thirst for living There is a pressing tick in my soul to allow my unregistered… it’s delving into the affirmation of an “I do” fingertips to ink an agonizing yet crucial lesson. It is an as I uncover colonial layers of violent baggage, it’s intuition weaved with yarn under the constellation of integrating the complexities of my bodily textualities radical love. It is a course aligned with three water-based without footing them, it’s praying for the tiniest creatures ingredients: tears, sweat and blood. When the trio is living under the mantle of earth, it’s vibrating when the combined in a clay pot, what I witness through touch is a clouds carry life to the desserts, it’s knitting untranslatable one-of-a-kind text that continues to be obscured and words only known to my heart, it’s crawling backwards to censored. How do I, as a survivor of a civil war in El empower other women, it’s letting my fingers stand in an Salvador, tainted by each of those ingredients, integrate altar made of maiz… It is the act of loving radically the them as part of what I do as educator in the Humanities in spirit of the person whose ruling continues to colonize me higher learning spaces in the North? while resisting their violence.

My grandfather used to speak of a strange love after Despite the sounds of broken bones, horrendous cries, looking at cadavers of innocent people outside of the house and agonizing words, our ears contemplated the possibility or whenever we attended funerals of assassinated peasants of seeking refuge in hope that was always passed on to us as we crawled into the holes of darkness. His guidance through my grandfather’s schooling. The first text he embodied what some speak of these days: decolonial love. handed to me came from the belly of a Douglas AC-47 So how does one grasp teaching decolonial love in hateful Spooky as it flew over our homes, nicknamed “Puff, the times? And these thoughts come to my rescue as I pause Magic Dragon,” as I learned later on in life, manufactured to reflect on the question: by the Douglas Aircraft Company in Santa Monica,

RADICAL TEACHER 31 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.456 California. The grotesque-like images printed in that text repeat the word several times letting the resonance of evoked fear and anger. Years later, as a student of E.S.L., gender, class, race, ethnicity, religions, etc., grow roots I learned about the compound word “shithole.” It embodied into air we can actually breathe without getting choked a distant yet raw memory and thought of the place where under policing bodies. No #shithole will be discussed the planes that bombarded thousands of innocent civilians without that framework. The tunnel vision of #45 & Co. in El Salvador had been made. “What a shithole!” I wrote happens to be one-dimensional and unilateral, grounded on down in a journal. the mucky nuisance of quicksand patched by bricks fabricated in a Magic Kingdom. In order to critically engage My grandfather taught me lessons about propaganda. with the opposite of this loose linearity, there is a type of “Language,” he would say, “is like the undercurrent multi-purpose gear made up of core elements to help you masking an accelerated and dangerous speed. When the stay afloat: Race, Gender, Class, Ethnicity, among others, time comes, you’ll be able to plant seeds where you now which you will all slowly identify as you crawl out of your see burnt bushes.” What strikes me the most, like lighting privileged unchecked zones. The essence of their existence on a sunny day, about the violence we, as people of color, lies precisely in this connection. Whether they come in face on a 24-7 basis are the lessons of resilience our contact in an obscure corner of a nameless street or they ancestors are constantly sending us: the full moon intersect in a public arena populated by people of the same caressing the sleep of birds, the lakes housing flames of skin color, the strings carry an active connective. It is hope, the mountains crawling underneath the universe, going to be our duty, yours and mine, to acknowledge and the humility to let our veins do the talking during these sections through the act of introspection. Why? inquisitorial times. For these reasons, engaging with Because nothing in criticism is passive; nothing in engaging “shitholes” requires a compass whose needle points is static. Jumping these ropes simultaneously will test our towards the “great” north. endurance for the taste of hot peppers as we chant: “All I have engaged in a thinking process about the politics oppression is connected!” Yarn of different colors will teach of #shitholes. My proposed questions to students are: How us visually how intersectionality works. So, for #45 & Co., are they made? Who has created them? Do you know basic lessons on tolerance and patience never really made where they are located? If you looked at a map, can you it to their table due, perhaps, to brief attention gaps filled point them out? What are they? When do they appear? If with one hundred and forty twitter-like characters? When you sign-up for this hypothetical course, you are expected one spends their life run by the Politics of Quick Books, it to engage c-r-i-t-i-c-a-l-l-y with discourses of power from results in processing human beings as cartoon and 1492 to the present in the United States (if I was teaching chewable gummy bear figures. it there, for instance). The stories and narratives we read The luggage to bring to class will be your own everywhere seem to fit more in a novel taking place during historical relationships to the making of #shitholes and the Spanish Inquisition. Know this: This ambitious how your families and their ancestors have benefitted for unlearning plan will take a lifetime and that’s exactly what generations from their fabrication, how they have built we’re up against: A lifelong battle. We also know that comfortable lives by simply ignoring the violence and social pretending that the tentacles of racism, classism and injustice taking place in your own backyard as you turn up gender-based discrimination haven’t touched us is simply the volume on football and basketball and hockey and to live in one of those castles built-in for optical illusion wrestling and baseball and soccer weekends and how you seekers in the orange state where the sun is always have actively gotten rid of innocent people to continue gracious. sustaining structures of power because it fits your notion of safety, security and economic agenda.

When dirt becomes the canvas I, as a woman of color, do not care about white tears. for one’s ideas, the hypothetical Everyone is accountable for bringing Kleenex to class then turns into certainty. And those because providing emotional labor is too expensive and my are the bones of unlearning. tears know no currency value. We will attempt to unpack how we have been indoctrinated to perceive aggressions. Ever since Christopher Columbus and his crew spotted And this is what I mean by unlearning: Civil wars land, we have been taught to believe we are the shrink playgrounds leaving children to sketch their aggressors. It is often more efficient and cost-effective to imagination on dirt. When dirt becomes the canvas for insert concepts like “safe space” into curricula mainly one’s ideas, the hypothetical then turns into certainty. And because universities are worried about their clients. In this those are the bones of unlearning. As a toddler, I learnt course, we will swim with linguistic sharks who will once rapidly to remain within limited spaces in order to continue again try to make us look like aggressors. We will peel the breathing because stepping outside of the box meant layers of the sheep whose beautiful skin hides what real encountering the deafening sounds of foreign landmines aggression looks and feels like. In times when the client is made in some shithole place. And that’s the beginning of a always right, the student has been catered to feel entitled long-term relationship with lines and time. Until death do to everything not realizing that the chosen material us apart. excludes non-conventional texts found in the natural The journey starts unpacking what Professor Kimberlé environment. Crenshaw teaches us regarding i-n-t-e-r-s-e-c-t-i-o-n-a-l-i- Learning to use our bodies in the course is not only t-y. You are invited to sit in a front row seat in order to pivotal but mandatory: We will stare at the color of our

RADICAL TEACHER 32 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.456 skin, read the swimming textuality of our hair and vision What you will need other worlds looking at what’s behind our eyes to unload the burdens of violence we sustain to get us an inch closer Patience, reliable insurance for self-care purposes, and to understanding how notions of displacement, citizenship lots of clean water! (If your preference is chocolate, make rights, lack of autonomy and passports operate in the sure to trace the #shithole place that enslaves children to #shitholes in relation to bananas, coffee, oil, gold, satisfy any Halloween trick-or-treating festivity). You may uranium, copper, cacao, tea, lithium, among other goodies. have gone backpacking there during your Summer Abroad experience. Because I have always been an exemplary citizen of El Salvador to the eyes of people who feed racism to hungry The Politics of Assessments (fill-in the blanks as per lions, the academic narrative goes like this: “Oh, wow! You your own experience) have a PhD? Look at you! You’re doing well for your people. Good for you!” My humanity has been approved, sealed, proven, and fully accepted as per academic A is for ______requirements. B is for ______Also, we will be holding ourselves accountable for C is for ______(HIS)story. There is no such thing as an ideal student to unlearn. Lawyers, politicians, hippies, educators, doctors, D is for ______nurses, therapists, lab technicians, carpenters, nuns, E is for ______janitors, judges, administrators, soldiers, domestic workers, flight attendants, UN coordinators, strippers, F is for Ferguson policy makers, journalists, stay-home dads, cardinals, activists, grandmothers, painters, knitters, bloggers, In my experience teaching under capitalist-driven correctional officers, TV personalities, sex workers, higher learning institutions in North America, students pay butchers, hygienists, and even those who speak of A LOT of money to get an education. Receiving an “A” in alternative facts are welcome. this course is up for grabs. #45 & Co. measure everyone in terms of monetary value getting to decide who is worth it and who is not. You paid for the course. You get an A if you Organization of the Course want. As we wrap up the institutional hours allotted to us, however, you will have an opportunity to reflect on your There is no one single methodology to this unlearning unlearning. You will then choose what you have earned journey because the narratives of #shithole spaces vary. after unlearning a thing or two about the politics of Here are just a few examples of what could be included: competition in the rat race caves. This in itself can be visiting the School of the Americas in Columbus, Georgia, interpreted as an assignment as we re-think on how some shining to the pace of the World Diamond Council in New of our personal histories have been downgraded to minus York City, transforming radiant energy at the Caracol “0.” Industrial Park in Haiti, making some form of sense of the United States leadership in mass incarceration, following the Chicago Boys and their Chilean tales (not peppers, the Assignment(s) country), daydreaming of the endless camps of U.S. Marines in the Dominican Republic, peeling ripe bananas Noun, late 14c., “an order, request, directive,” from inspired by the Monroe doctrine, sipping fresh coffee as Old French assignement “(legal) assignment (of dower, you taste fresh blood from American-owned land in etc.),” from Late Latin assignamentum, noun of action from Guatemala courtesy of the American United Fruit Company, Latin assignare/adsignare “to allot, assign, award” washing one’s hands with bleach to remove the ‘dirt’ from (see assign). Meaning “appointment to office” is mid-15c.; Argentina, undoing the words “barbaric” and “uncivilized” that of "a task assigned (to someone), commission" is by as we tip-toe through the Reagan years in El Salvador, 1848. pacifying thirst with poisoned-flavored water packaged Questions to ponder: carefully in Flint, Michigan, freezing very slowly in Who orders? Whose requests matter? Whose elementary schools in Baltimore because there are no direction are we following? Where does the word heaters, handing out used clothing at the Otay Mesa come from? What’s the concept got to do with Detention Center in San Diego, knocking doors in the Mid- colonialism? What are the legal implications in the West to speak of why Muslim is not a synonym to terrorist, making of shitholes? Who gets the awards? What’s explaining to elders why wheelchairs are not a necessity behind the history of awards? Who gets to appoint but an affordable luxury item, thinking of unrestricted clear #45 to office? skies as we write down “Back the Blue Act,” daydreaming of what it would be like to not be dependent on Opioid, To expose existing shitholes in places where race planning a semi-decent parenthood life sketched around determines assigned seats, we are encouraged to Title X, etc., etc., etc. As the course advances (if it does), create our own tasks as per our own distinct it is expected that students contribute their own abilities. methodological approaches. Note: It’s important to identify the birthplace of torture methods in the #shitholes. This Note: No assignment will ever capture the impact can be quite illuminating. Google maps will come in handy. of the violent legacy of colonialism and other –

RADICAL TEACHER 33 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.456 isms. It’s important to acknowledge that whatever Readings tangible piece of reflection you turn in, it resembles a glimpse into beautiful minds. And You don’t get to “possess” them. You are encouraged, that’s okay. Let’s remember that part of learning, instead, to start pondering the concept of “censorship” by teaching, unlearning and unteaching under #45 is staring at a black page instead to begin the course. that creativity is being killed slowly. And we will Decolonial love in the pedagogy I learned from my create activities that reflect other ways of reading, grandfather and my relationship with the land requires us writing, walking, breathing, speaking, and to let go of deadlines, time, scholarly notions of unpacking, among other gerund-like sounding productivity and the feeling to compete for grades. The actions. readings that often stay lingering around our heart are those that are not often published but that have been cared for by the hands of elders. Contemplating the dance My expectations of a bee or the march of an ant will teach us, for instance, endless lessons of what aggression is not. I am not your I expect you to: a) be present through the senses: babysitter. You are not my babies. Let’s leave the seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling and tasting, b) identify in patronizing to #45 & Co. a Eurocentric map by the end of the course where the #shitholes in your own backyard are, c) who operates In this course we will experience decolonial love them, d) how you continue to benefit from the system that through transformative lessons to teach us how to liberate fabricates false notions of #shitholes and e) be aware of ourselves from colonial notions of what violence is and who the space you take up in class. If you, for example, are a is violent. You won’t get to see readings from the start male who is doing all the talking, you will learn how to because it is what you’re expecting as a customer. Instead, listen. You can bring your own masking tape if the latter we will dive into a journey of feeling them. We will connect, becomes challenging to do. intersect and encounter with different elements utilizing metaphors like yarn and strings, just to name some. You are responsible for your own unlearning. No one Reconfiguring personal cartographies utilizing an will be checking if you have done the academic work. intersectional approach will be messy at first yet it will Capitalism has taught us that everything is for sale, allow us to learn ways to be joyful. As unlearners-in-the- including human beings. Remember, #WeAreNotEquals making, we will uplift each other when undoing the This introductory course is that, an introduction. You personal histories of violence we have inherited as we map will never be an expert nor should you call yourself that. out the #shitholes we have missed, ignored and erased in Even if you visited the invented version of #shitholes for the name of “greatness” and progress. two weeks to build a school or something, you don’t get to call yourself an expert. Last by not least, this is a life-long unlearning project nourished by the sacred beauty of questions, deep reflection, undoing (HIS)story and the commitment to the liberation of ourselves and others, as pointed out by Paulo Freire.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

This journal is published by the University Library System of the University of Pittsburgh as part of its D-Scribe Digital Publishing Program, and is cosponsored by the University of Pittsburgh Press.

RADICAL TEACHER 34 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.456 ISSN: 1941-0832

Teaching High School Cultural Studies in the Age of Trump

by DJ Cashmere

A COLLECTION OF CLASSROOM ANCHOR CHARTS

RADICAL TEACHER 35 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.515

In other words, Cultural Studies was a class “Certain members of the oppressor class join the specifically designed to radicalize. So, it was particularly oppressed in their struggle for liberation… They important to look up this word. talk about the people, but they do not trust them: and trusting the people is the indisputable precondition for revolutionary change. A real Developing Cultural Studies Seminar humanist can be identified more by his trust in the people, which engages him in their struggle, than In the fall of 2016, I began my third year teaching by a thousand actions in their favor without that Cultural Studies Seminar at Chicago Bulls College Prep trust.” (CBCP), where I’d been working as a teacher since 2010. CBCP is a campus of the Noble Network of Charter Schools -Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed and is located on Chicago’s Near West Side. 1 The school serves a population of students that is roughly 2/3 Latino

and 1/3 African American, and about 90% of CBCP’s In the high school Cultural Studies Seminar I co- students receive free or reduced-price lunch. Every year, taught in 2016-2017, my students knew that when we 100% of seniors are accepted to college. This year, I would didn’t know what a word meant, we looked it up. One day be teaching ninth-graders. during the school year, a few weeks after President I had first devised the course in the fall of 2014, when Trump’s inauguration, we came across the word my principal and assistant principal gave me permission to “radicalize” in an article about DeRay Mckesson and other re-focus the 11th-grade literacy class I was teaching. I Black Lives Matter activists. wanted to specifically study racism, classism, sexism, and heterosexism in America, with an eye toward how those systems operate and how they can be—and have been— resisted. We put our heads together and came up with the name “Cultural Studies Seminar.”

I’m not sure I was the right person for this job. At the time, I was just beginning to come to terms with what it meant to be a straight White able-bodied cisgender male from a middle-class Judeo-Christian household. I had not even begun to understand what it meant to carry that identity into a classroom with students whose identities were quite different than my own. I was still deeply individualistic, an attribute that had been subconsciously reinforced throughout my

A SERIES OF POSSIBLE DEFINITIONS DISPLAYED ON THE CLASS WHITEBOARD ON FEBRUARY 9, 2017 life, and I asked for little help or guidance from the people around me. I

was extremely privileged, having experienced virtually According to the article’s author, Jay Caspian Kang, none of the traumas many of my students had survived Mckesson was radicalized during a tear gas-laden protest in (and in some cases were continuing to survive on a daily Ferguson, Missouri in 2014. “Radicalize,” in the context of basis). And I hadn’t yet confronted the socialization which the article, meant “to make one favor extreme changes in caused me, on a subconscious level, not to fully trust my existing views or practices.” students.

This was a bit of a “meta” moment because the class As a result of all this, the first year of Cultural Studies itself also favored such changes. In Cultural Studies, my Seminar was a difficult one. My individualism left me co-teachers and I sought to empower students to groping in the dark, not realizing, for example, that transform negative views they had about themselves and exploring narratives of oppression without also exploring the self-sabotaging habits those views sometimes counter-narratives of resistance was ultimately re- engendered. We also sought to provide students with traumatizing, not empowering. My privilege made it language and tools for understanding their own oppression difficult for me to respond to student struggles in trauma- (and privilege), analyzing social justice movements past responsive ways. My lack of trust undermined the goals I and present, and transforming the world. We sought, in set out to accomplish. To put it another way: during that both pedagogy and curriculum, to be intentionally first year, my class was not radical. It was rooted in liberal antiracist, anti-sexist, anti-classist, and anti-heterosexist, values, not liberationist values, and as a result, authentic even as the new presidential administration was proving empowerment was not possible. itself to be quite the opposite.

RADICAL TEACHER 36 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.515 Thankfully, my community lifted me up. In my second We also visited with Michael James, a long-time year of teaching Cultural Studies, this time with educator who worked directly with Paulo Freire years ago. sophomores, a native Chicagoan and veteran educator at He, too, was wildly generous with his time, driving us CBCP named Christine Peralta agreed to co-teach the class around San Francisco and inviting us to a session of his with me. Her brilliant mind for data, sharp organizational high school leadership fellowship. There, we learned about systems, and deep understanding of student psychology the power of students learning to construct their own filled significant gaps in my skill set. The perspective she “social biographies,” in which they contextualized the story brought as a daughter of immigrants of color, and her of their lives using their understanding of systemic willingness to share that perspective with me, led to deep inequality, then continued on to also explain the ways in and difficult conversation and reflection on the nature of which they would use their lives to disrupt the status quo. our curriculum and our interaction with students. Each of these elders had a direct impact on my practice in the classroom. I still can’t believe it took me so long to seek them out.

Getting Started

A few days before classes started for my incoming ninth-graders in the fall of 2016, a group of juniors who had taken Cultural Studies with Ms. Peralta and I the year before came up to the school to help plan the first week’s agenda. They were volunteering some of their last hours of summer vacation, and they worked largely on their own. The following week, they came once again, this time to welcome the ninth-graders and implement the agenda they’d created.

On the first day of class, my new students walked by a sign on the door reading, “I Love You. I Trust You. I Believe in You.” I said these words aloud at the beginning of class on day one and repeated them regularly throughout the school year. Then, when I found myself resorting to years of socialization that had taught me not to trust young people of color, my own words would ring in my head or call out from the classroom door. You said you trusted them. You have to trust them. It’s right there on the door!

A CLASSROOM SIGN AT THE START OF THE 2016-2017 SCHOOL YEAR, INSPIRED BY THE WORK OF MICHAEL JAMES.

By that time, I had also begun learning from elders. At the University of Puget Sound’s Race & Pedagogy National Conference in September 2014, I heard Dr. Robin DiAngelo explain that racism was always at work in our society: it was never a matter of if, but only ever a matter of how. Other speakers, such as Dr. Eduardo Bonilla-Silva and Dr. Angela Davis, pushed my thinking further, giving me a greater sense of how much I did not know.

In February 2016, I saw Dr. Jeff Duncan-Andrade speak twice in Washington, D.C. Ms. Peralta and I then visited him at his school in Oakland, California, called Roses in Concrete. He was generous with his time, touring us around the school and answering our questions, transforming our understanding of what an educational space could be. At Roses, there was a focus on both educational excellence and healing, a belief in people over process, a trust in students to create rituals, and a deep intentionality around physical spaces. JUNIORS MEETING IN AUGUST 2016 TO HELP PLAN THE FIRST WEEK OF CLASS FOR NINTH-GRADERS.

RADICAL TEACHER 37 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.515 Empowering my former students to be front and After the meet-and-greet, we’d all take part in a center during the opening days of class sent a number of guided meditation. Usually, either myself or Mr. Ibarra important messages. For one thing, this was going to be a would lead, though sometimes a student would take the classroom in which discussion between students was the responsibility. The idea here was to become fully present in main event. the room, clearing our heads and coming back to our bodies. (Another core value was “Be Mindful.”) For another, we were going to value diverse voices beyond those which were in the classroom every day. Over If students came in with a lot of stress, we’d also take the months to come, I would invite staff members of color a few minutes to talk in whole-group about what was on from the teaching, discipline, and custodial/maintenance their minds. Some days this wasn’t necessary, but often, teams to speak to the students. I also welcomed alumni especially on Mondays, it was. Students shared everything into the classroom and gave them the floor to talk about from shopping trips they’d taken with their parents to their experiences in college. One alumnus, Daniel Ibarra, a personal experiences with gun violence they’d had over the 2013 CBCP graduate, took over for Ms. Peralta and became weekend. When a student had experienced something the second teacher in the room for the duration of the particularly traumatic, they always knew they could share, 2016-2017 school year. (Ms. Peralta continued supporting though they were never forced to. The rest of the room behind the scenes.) Mr. Ibarra’s tireless consistency, slowly learned to hold the emotional space for the person cheerful demeanor, and intelligence benefited our students sharing. They did this by listening closely, expressing immensely. As someone who’d been in the students’ seats sympathy and concern, and sometimes relating their own just a few years prior, he had a unique ability to connect experiences which were similar to the one that was shared. and inspire. If the room got heavy, we’d acknowledge this and sit with it for a moment before intentionally putting it away and Ms. Peralta, Mr. Ibarra, and I made another important moving on with our agenda. choice at the beginning of the year: we hosted a family barbecue for current and former Cultural Studies students Sometimes, it took a long time to put things away, and and their families. This gave our juniors another chance to on rare occasions, we never did move on to the agenda. mentor the incoming ninth-graders, which they would One such day was November 9, 2016, the day after the continue to do in office hours during the school year. It presidential election. In each class period, the fear and also gave us a chance to build community. disappointment were palpable, and we spent as much time as was needed allowing students to process their feelings Finally, I took the time, at long last, to intentionally and clear up their misunderstandings about what was and decorate our classroom. Inspired by Roses in Concrete, I wasn’t happening in the country. It was a crucial time to

THE CLASSROOM PRIOR TO THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL. DECORATIONS INCLUDED AN “UPSIDE DOWN” MAP, A “MIGRATION IS BEAUTIFUL” POSTER, AND IMAGES OF VARIOUS ACTIVISTS. WE WOULD GO ON TO FILL THE RED AND BLUE BULLETIN BOARD WITH PHOTOS OF STUDENTS’ ANCESTORS. made sure that our walls reflected back the identity of our uphold and act out our third core value, “Question students and the philosophy of our class. Everything.” It was also a time in which I was grateful to be in the classroom. Where better to be on that day than Throughout the year, most days followed a familiar amongst my students, working toward social change pattern. When the bell rang, students were required to be together? sitting silently in their seats, as they were across the school. Once we said hello to each other, however, we’d The current political climate continued to shape our have a meet-and-greet. This was an informal practice lives in the classroom. When students decided to stay taken from LaVaughn Cain, another colleague and a home on the Day Without Immigrants, we made sure they trusted elder, during which students would mill about and felt validated in their choice. We also connected students greet each other and catch up on life. The only expectation who were undocumented or had undocumented family was that they greet expansively, as opposed to sticking to members with emotional support and information about cliques or self-segregating along lines of race and gender. legal resources. If we were going to “Love Everyone”—one of our three On most days, though, we didn’t spend too much time classroom core values—it had to start in the opening on the news. The best way to arm our students against the minutes. indignities of the new administration wasn’t to digest each new assault on cultural norms and marginalized groups.

RADICAL TEACHER 38 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.515 The best way was to remember why we were here: dictionary, a writing utensil, a laptop, or a clarification, liberation. Not from Trump, but from oppressive systems they knew they were trusted to do so without needing to which pre-dated him by centuries. ask for permission. You said you trusted them. You have to trust them. Eventually, students ran virtually the entire We’d move from meditation into our daily quiz, an discussion by themselves.2 open-note eight-question affair designed to give students an opportunity to prove their comprehension of the Our question sets were always comprised of three previous night’s reading. From there, now about 20 types of questions: reading skill, content knowledge, and minutes into the period, we’d transition into our discussion social biography. groups. Students were grouped into five tables of roughly six Reading Skill students each. Sometimes, they’d spend the rest of the class working on question sets with their entire table. My students came in at an 11.4 on the Reading ACT. Other times, they’d split further into pairs, and work that This was about ten points below the national average for way. Our class discussions lasted the remainder of the high school juniors. It was also slightly worse than what period, roughly 50 minutes. they would receive by bubbling in “B” for every question and closing the book. Class work on question sets alternated between small- group work and whole-group check-in. Students would Granted, they had nearly three years to make up the work together with their partners or groups for a few ground, but the median historic growth for ninth-graders minutes, then I’d ring a bell and center the attention on a across the Noble Network was 2.76 points—and the Noble single speaker. If I noticed a common error being made, Network was getting some of the best results in the entire I’d note it and send them back to work. If I thought we city of Chicago. Even reaching the 75th percentile for were ready to hear an answer, I’d call on someone and historic network growth would get us only 2.91 points. then others would give them feedback on their response. The ACT Reading test is an imperfect measure of If a student was stuck during their small-group work, reading ability, let alone intelligence. It is not an adaptive they could go to another table or ring the bell and ask the test, it is administered under a severe time constraint, and whole class for help. Students had free reign of the its passages rarely reflect the language or culture of classroom, so whether they needed to get a tissue, a millions of students who take it every year. It measures neither creativity nor character. Nonetheless, the ACT—or a similar test—would play a huge role in my students’ college admission and, by extension, their future. And in a high- stakes charter school environment, I was directly accountable to my students’ results. Test score growth became a sort of currency with which to justify radical spaces within the institution.

We spent only twelve days on test prep over the course of the school year, and even those days were less about the test and more about coming to see stamina and positivity as direct challenges to the status quo. As one student reflected, doing well on the test would challenge “beliefs and power structures, because the system was set up for students of color to fail.” Another student added, “most of the class believes they can’t do the ACT, but they can… we as a family just have to have a positive mindset and support each other through everything.” A third argued that improving would move “our brains one step closer to liberation.”

A COLLECTION OF CLASSROOM ANCHOR CHARTS. We spent the bulk of our time reading and discussing high-level

RADICAL TEACHER 39 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.515 non-fiction texts by authors such as Audre Lorde, Eric Schlosser, Malcolm Gladwell, James Baldwin, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, John Eligon, Mary Crow Dog, and Richard Rodriguez. Each night, students read and closely annotated 1,000 words, meaning that some longer articles took us more than a week to read.

In Cultural Studies, reading was equated with understanding. Our “reading skill” discussion questions were focused on comprehension above all else. Time and again, we explained what individual words meant, paraphrased sentences, and summarized short passages. If we needed to spend a whole class period on a single sentence, then that’s what we did.

This is why our core values of Loving Everyone, Being Mindful, and Questioning Everything were so important in the classroom. Students who had gotten away with wrong answers and incomplete NINTH-GRADERS IN AFTER-SCHOOL OFFICE HOURS BEING ASSISTED BY ELEVENTH-GRADERS. understandings for years were often visibly frustrated when told over and over again that they were not, actually, correct. Without loving don’t have to take the injustice. You also made me realize speech, respect, and gentle action, the criticism would that I don’t have to be White in order to change something have been disheartening instead of empowering. Without that I don’t like about society…” breathing, smiling, and pausing often to praise all the “History is repeating itself as people who are not wonderful aspects of the work being done, relentlessness liberated keep quiet. History repeats itself when Blacks and would have become drudgery. Without constantly asking Whites don’t even know who we are, what we have been why, requiring rationale, and allowing students to through, what we have accomplished…” customize their space, the right answers would have remained forever lost. “You taught me that it’s up to me to change things in the world—but the only way I will be able to do that is to Still, it was extremely difficult. Many students get liberated and find my self-worth…” struggled to follow through on their homework, and some struggled with staying disciplined and focused in class. I did my best to work within our school’s discipline system to Content Knowledge be both consistent and sympathetic, firm and loving. The students who got in trouble the most also got the most Content knowledge was our second pillar, because our one-on-one support and encouragement. It wasn’t always students needed to learn things, not just skills. They enough. needed to navigate between texts and units with a common vocabulary and a set of references that grew and I knew that it was going to take a while for the hard deepened over time. work to pay off. I made sure never to give a student less than 50% on any assignment. That way, the grade book Inspired by the explanation of institutions in Tracy E. had a bottom, and students could always bounce back. As Ore’s The Social Construction of Difference and Inequality, the year progressed, I weighted assignments more and we created four units: Social Justice in the Media, Social more heavily, so that students who struggled early on had Justice in Education, Social Justice in the State, and Social a chance at redemption as they grew, and students who Justice in the Economy and in the Family. were already doing well were incentivized to stay focused. In each unit, we focused on two main pieces of content Of course, once we had done the hard work, we could knowledge: understanding how systems of inequality put comprehension exercises aside and creatively reflect on worked within a given institution and understanding how what we now understood. Here, for example, are some social justice movements fought back against that excerpts of students’ letters to James Baldwin, in response inequality. to his 1963 speech “A Talk to Teachers,” which we read a We taught four systems of inequality: racism, few weeks after the election. classism, sexism, and heterosexism. A system of inequality was defined as a collection of rules, norms, beliefs, and power structures that worked together to privilege one “Your speech was very empowering to me because you group and oppress another group. After mastering these opened my eyes to know that just because I’m a child, I four elements, in order to understand each individual

RADICAL TEACHER 40 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.515 system, students simply had to plug in the proper participating in the Women’s March—the immediacy of privileged and oppressed group. This meant that later these ideas became ever greater. ideas, such as Audre Lorde’s “no hierarchy of oppressions” and the concept of intersectionality, made a certain kind of organic sense. Social Biography

A MARCH 2016 PARENT MEETING IN WHICH STUDENTS AND PARENTS “THE DIAMOND” WE USED TO DISCUSS SYSTEMS OF INEQUALITY. DISCUSSED “THE DIAMOND” AND APPLIED IT TO SELMA. WE REPEATED THE EVENT THE FOLLOWING YEAR.

A social biography is an intentionally radical retelling of a life story in connection to the wider world. We first learned about social biographies from Michael James and came to define them for students in the following way: my We drew these four elements—rules, norms, beliefs, life in the context of the world, and the context of the and power structures—in an interconnecting diamond world as it is transformed by my life. shape. “The Diamond” then became an analytical tool we used to unpack oppression in both written and multimedia The social biography questions provided a space for texts. In studying Selma, for example, we were able to personal reflection and academic application. They started identify rules (the poll tax, the literacy test), beliefs (White off quite simple. Students were asked to discuss how they supremacy), power structures (elected officials, court felt when they first walked into the classroom, for example, clerks), and norms (unchecked violence against people of color) that worked together to privilege Whites and oppress people of color.

Indeed, in one of our quarterly parent meetings, students formed circles with their peers and family members and taught their family members “the Diamond.” We then watched clips from Selma and the parents and students worked together to identify examples of rules, norms, beliefs, and power structures in action.

We had another mechanism for understanding social justice movements called “the Triangle,” which consisted of three elements: diversity, unity, and discipline. Over and over, whether reading about Black Lives Matter or watching How to Survive a Plague, we searched for evidence of these three things. We noticed that homogeneity, discord, and impetuousness among activist groups impeded progress. But when they brought on allies, worked together, and carefully crafted and followed plans, they brought about significant change.

As current and former Cultural Studies students started expressing interest in, and even participating in, activism themselves—such as attending the Chicago OUR CLASSROOM WALLS REFLECTED SOME OF THE ACTIVISTS AND ACTIVIST GROUPS WE STUDIED, INCLUDING ACT UP, BLM, AND THE protest which shut down a planned Trump rally or UFW

RADICAL TEACHER 41 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.515 or whether reading Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s “We about the systemic roots of their struggle. In so doing, Should All Be Feminists” had changed their own they learned that they were connected to the world around relationship with the notion of feminism. As we got deeper them. As James Baldwin said, “You think your pain and into the year, the questions became more personal. your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world. But then you read.” At the end of each quarter, students were asked to write a social biography essay. For example, at the end of One of our students reflected on his oppression as a Unit 2, Social Justice in Education, students were given 8- person of color whose family was low-income, but also 10 paragraphs to write a three-part essay. In Part 1, they reflected on his own sexism, and his expectations of were asked to tell specific stories about their own pre-high submissiveness from his girlfriend. Another got fired up school educations. In Part II, they drew direct connections over the racist and classist education system that had between their stories and our texts from the unit. Using allowed him to get to high school without learning the direct quotations and classroom language (rules, norms, names of the world’s continents. Multiple students worked beliefs, power structures), students contextualized their through their experiences. In Part III, experiences with they reflected on what sexual assault. mindsets or habits they’d We had a developed about student who themselves as a result of struggled mightily these experiences, and with both grades and whether transforming discipline share a these might have a story about being positive impact, both sexually harassed in personally and on the middle school. At the wider world. time, she’d been Each of these parts punished for the proved crucial. Students incident along with personally reflected on her harasser, and failing to get into selective she had internalized schools, being bullied by a sense of guilt and classmates, and even shame. Over the being called names or course of many physically abused by conversations and former teachers. By assignments, she contextualizing these AN ANONYMOUS STUDENT BRAINSTORM ABOUT NEGATIVE BELIEFS THEY INHERITED was able to analyze experiences through the ABOUT THEMSELVES FROM THEIR FAMILIES AND/OR OTHER SOURCES. her own story using application of their the diamond— academic understanding, they were able to discover hidden realizing, for example, that such assaults were a sexist truths about some of the things they had survived. All of a norm—which helped her understand she was not alone. sudden, what had seemed like a personal failure was re- Another student who struggled with grades and cast as an oppressive norm. A silenced moment of danger discipline shared a story about his encounter with racial was revealed to be a systemic lack of rules. A personal profiling at the hands of the police. In the middle of class attack was re-understood as an abusive power structure one day, he was able to move from a place of barely- with harmful beliefs. restrained anger (“cops are pigs”) to a place of intellectual It was through this contextualizing that the class analysis (“that was an example of a racist power rescued itself from being group therapy. Before I learned structure”). how to help students contextualize—before the trip Ms. The radical nature of the reflection did not stop there. Peralta and I took to the Bay—personal reflections had Students were encouraged to go a step further and been extremely ineffective in Cultural Studies. Some imagine transformation, both personal and systemic. It students would reveal deep wounds, going through a wasn’t just “my life in the context of the world,” but also process of re-traumatization that may have been cathartic, “the context of the world as it is transformed by my life.” but wasn’t truly healing. Other students, sensing the lack of emotional safety, would put up walls, finding ways to The student who had been struggling since her middle distance themselves from the material, noting little details school harassment started bringing up her grades and in a story that would allow them to claim, “that’s not about stopped getting detentions. The student who had been me.” mistreated by police did the same. He also became a mentor to a younger student who was dealing with similar What eventually made it a radical space was not that academic and behavioral struggles. Eventually, a large students were free to share their trauma—though they group of our students were asked by the assistant principal were, and they did. What made it a radical space (for our to share their contextualized stories in other classrooms in final weeks with the tenth-graders and for the ninth- graders after them) was that they spent time learning

RADICAL TEACHER 42 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.515 order to bring a higher level of consciousness and History had to be added to the 11th-grade course offerings authenticity to their peers. in order to accommodate them. I watched the Cultural Studies ninth-graders outpace their predecessors, reaching It wasn’t just trauma, but healing. 3.96 points of growth on the Reading ACT—just 0.16 points *** shy of beating the historic record across the network. I watched students in both classes sit down with their parents at the end of their respective school years and share their final social biographies.

They were stories of survival: of border crossings, sexual assaults, and run-ins with the police. They were stories of awakening: of learning family history, of owning up to privilege, of caring more about the world. They were stories of liberation.

For over an hour, students led their families in a discussion in which they actively contextualized their pasts and talked about their futures. One student was in tears talking about not having enough food on the table at home. Another came out of the closet to her parents, protected by the students in her group—and their families, too, who were all in the circle together. Parents hugged other parents’ children.

STUDENTS LED DISCUSSION CIRCLES WITH THEIR FAMILY MEMBERS DURING THE FINAL These were the most radical nights of the CULTURAL STUDIES PARENT MEETING OF THE YEAR. entire course.

The ninth-graders’ gathering was on May 31, 2017, four months into the Trump presidency. Young students of It took a student asking me about my own social color from Chicago’s inner city were leading their own biography for me to realize that I didn’t have one. Pretty meeting, surrounded by their families, un-silencing their soon, I was forcing myself to answer the same questions stories and their identities and talking openly about what as my students. With their help and the help of my they hoped to do to change the world. colleagues, I came to realize that my ancestors, like those of my students, had experienced oppression when they arrived in America. Many of their stories, like those of my students’ ancestors, had been silenced or lost. Their suffering had been transmitted, in different forms, from generation to generation. And now, in place of the identity with which they arrived, I possessed a dehumanizing privilege that had been impeding my personal relationships and making me a less effective teacher.

This set of realizations led me to finally understand the words of the indigenous activist Lilla Watson, who famously said, “If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” In other words, I had skin in the game. For years, I had fallen into the “White savior” trap of “coming to help” my students. As it turned out, I needed liberation, too.

CUSTOMIZING THEIR SPACE, A GROUP OF STUDENTS GRABBED AN *** AVAILABLE WHITEBOARD AND OUTLINED THE FOUR BASIC QUESTIONS OF THEIR FINAL SOCIAL BIOGRAPHY ASSIGNMENT IN BOTH ENGLISH AND SPANISH. THIS SERVED AS A VISUAL AID AS THEY SHARED THEIR STORIES WITH THEIR FAMILIES AT THE FINAL PARENT MEETING.

I have no doubt that the Cultural Studies students will go on to lead transformational lives. They certainly didn’t wait for the future in order to get started. I watched the Cultural Studies tenth-graders do so well at the end of the 2015-2016 school year that an extra section of AP US

RADICAL TEACHER 43 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.515 Ending the Year Works Cited

After graduating from Chicago Bulls College Prep in Baldwin, James. “A Talk to Teachers.” James Baldwin: 2013, Mr. Ibarra had tried his hand at a four-year Collected Essays. New York: Library of America, 1998. university, but hadn’t made it. When he started co- 678-686. Print. teaching with me, he was taking community college classes Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: and was unsure about his path forward. Contiuum, 2011. Print. One day, he told our students the story of his college How great leaders inspire action. Simon Sinek. TEDxPuget experience. He talked about not being properly counseled Sound, 2009. TED.com. Web. 19 Jan 2018. about course selection, not being assigned an engaged https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1- advisor, and not feeling comfortable with the clear class ab&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=w5hsWvnTE9CN_Qal8K6gDA& differential between him and some of his peers. The q=mla+bibliography+film&oq=mla+bibliography+film students helped him contextualize this and other struggles &gs_l=psy- using “the Diamond.” Before the year was out, he was once ab.3..0i24k1.80655.80999.0.81200.5.4.0.1.1.0.146.42 again enrolled in a four-year school, and is now on track to 4.2j2.4.0....0...1c.1.64.psy- earn his bachelor’s degree in 2020—the same year the ab..1.4.288...0j0i67k1j0i30k1j0i5i30k1j0i8i30k1.0.kt_ students we taught together will enter college. 3EiFRZlg#imgrc=3c9ZUmuI1TU7IM: The last two weeks of class were made up of a How to Survive a Plague. Dir. David France. Perf. Peter student-run “final exam.” After receiving a set of criteria Staley, Larry Kramer, Iris Long. Public Square Films, and creating their own class agenda, they watched and 2012. Film. discussed Viva la Causa, a film about the United Farm Workers. They switched back and forth between the film, Kang, Jay Caspian. “Our Demand is Simple: Stop Killing their partners, and the whole-group setting, employing the Us.” Washington Post. May 4, 2015. Web. 19 Jan. class vocabulary of “the Diamond” and “the Triangle” to 2018. analyze what they were seeing. They also reflected, https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/10/magazine/our- individually and collectively, on their growth in reading demand-is-simple-stop-killing-us.html skill, content knowledge, and social biography, and Lorde, Audre. “There is no Hierarchy of Oppressions.” explored what liberation meant to them. Their rubric was UCSD LGBT Resource Center. Web. 19 Jan 2018. based on three criteria: diversity, unity, and discipline. https://lgbt.ucsd.edu/education/oppressions.html I disappeared as fully as possible. You have to trust Ore, Tracey E. The Social Construction of Difference and them. Inequality: Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality, 6th They crushed it. Edition. New York: McGraw-Hill Education, 2013. Print.

Selma. Dir. Ava DuVernay. Perf. David Oyelowo, Carmen Ejogo, Oprah Winfrey, Tom Wilkinson. Pathé, 2015.

Film.

Viva la Causa. Bill Brummel Productions, 2008. Film.

RADICAL TEACHER 44 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.515

compassionate, driven, high-performing colleagues. The Notes school’s emphasis on autonomy and innovation was what empowered the creation of Cultural Studies. 1 I realize Radical Teacher readers may have strong 2 reservations about charter schools. I believe there are Our discussion system was a variation on a school-wide inherent flaws in both traditional public and public charter instructional model, which made implementing such a school models, just as there are examples of both excellent student-focused structure much easier—they were used to traditional public schools and excellent public charter taking the lead in their other classes, as well. schools. In my experience at CBCP, I was surrounded by

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

This journal is published by the University Library System of the University of Pittsburgh as part of its D-Scribe Digital Publishing Program, and is cosponsored by the University of Pittsburgh Press.

RADICAL TEACHER 45 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.515 ISSN: 1941-0832

Poems Fasces Americae and Walt Whitman’s House

by Fred Marchant

FRED MARCHANT, PHOTO COURTESY OF AUTHOR

RADICAL TEACHER 46 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.526

Fasces Americae

we are party to the sham, endless weather reports, each of us convinced no harm will come if only, if only, if only, and nothing too cruel or violent should ever touch us, not really, not here, not now, not in the midst of our land of good and plenty, yet as in the dry heat of this August afternoon, a moment's chill point penetrates, you feel it come in over the air- waves and settle in as if poison has found the place in the body it had been looking for all along, thus the heart seizes in on itself and the brain's own round of symmetry, reverts, descends into a series of crude punctuations, an exclamation now! like a stake in the heart ellipsis points that become . . . nothing but a trail down the wash leading nowhere, while the real questions sway before our eyes like snakes that refuse to be charmed ? ? ? and are bound together around each other and under the honed head of an axe.

RADICAL TEACHER 47 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.526

Walt Whitman’s House

Camden

His last one, two floors, two granite slabs for his doorstep, empty lots and snowy vastness surrounding, rows of row-houses torn down.

Across the street the beige bricks of the jail, a bus-stop, a few metallic window-slots five or six floors up. I think mostly of his kind eyes,

how they would have taken in the jail, the jailers, the inmates, the friends and lovers at the bus-stop waiting for the bus, the snow falling, going home all.

How in their sleep he might visit, touch their lips and try to keep them warm with feelings no one, not even the poets of then or now, know the name of.

Outside his house in the white snow, on the drifts rising like waves frozen, a vast stone ship of state is lit up, its hold filled to the limit, and about to sink.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

This journal is published by the University Library System of the University of Pittsburgh as part of its D-Scribe Digital Publishing Program, and is cosponsored by the University of Pittsburgh Press.

RADICAL TEACHER 48 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.526 ISSN: 1941-0832

After #Charlottesville: Interrogating our Racist Past in the Trump Era

by Travis Boyce

HUNDREDS OF WHITE NATIONALISTS RALLY AT THE THOMAS JEFFERSON STATUE ON THE CAMPUS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA (AUGUST 11, 2017). PHOTO COURTESY OF STEPHANIE KEITH OF THE DAILY MAIL

RADICAL TEACHER 49 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.478

Introduction

In 2017, this nation’s discussion about the Confederate flag, monuments, and other racist structures reached a deadly but pivotal moment. On the weekend of August 11th to the 12th, 2017, far right and hate groups held a rally (“Unite the Right”) in Charlottesville, Virginia to protest the city council’s ruling to remove the Robert E. Lee monument IMAGE 2. PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP SENT TWEETS IN SUPPORT OF THE located at Emancipation Park. Carrying tiki torches, on PRESERVATION OF CONFEDERATE MONUMENTS Friday evening, hundreds of neo-Nazis and White nationalists marched through the city as well as the campus To Trump (as noted in his tweets), such monuments of University of Virginia chanting racist and nationalistic enhance the beauty of parks and public spaces, and his slogans (See Image 1). opinion was an obvious dog whistle to White supremacists. But to those who oppose these monuments, Confederate statues and monuments represent the preservation of White supremacy. The statues are a reminder of the “Lost Cause” ideology in U.S. institutions and policies (a revisionist narrative that puts our country’s slave history and the Confederacy in a positive light).

David Duke, a White nationalist politician and a former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan who attended the rally, referenced the importance of the event. He stated,

This represents a turning point for the people of this country. We are determined to take our country back. We are going to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump. That’s what we believed in, that’s why we voted for Donald Trump. Because he said he’s going to take our country back. That’s what we gotta do. (Hanson, 2017) IMAGE 1. HUNDREDS OF WHITE NATIONALISTS RALLY AT THE THOMAS JEFFERSON STATUE ON THE CAMPUS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA (FRIDAY AUGUST 11, 2017). PHOTO COURTESY OF STEPHANIE KEITH OF Duke heard Trump’s message loud and clear. Trump’s THE DAILY MAIL. rhetoric and policies had emboldened David Duke, Richard Spencer, neo-Nazis, and other White nationalists to rally in The following day, the rally turned violent and deadly Charlottesville. During the 2016 presidential campaign, with the murder of local anti-racist activist Heather Heyer Trump ran on a platform that included racist, sexist, by James Alex Fields, Jr., an alleged member or associate xenophobic, and nationalistic rhetoric and policies. Most of the White nationalist group Vanguard America. President notably, he emerged on the campaign scene vilifying Donald Trump used the Charlottesville rally as an Mexican immigrants and promising to build a wall along the opportunity to stir division, stating there were “very fine U.S.–Mexican border. Upon winning the presidency and people on both sides” (Gray, 2017) and later tweeting his taking office, he pushed for immigration reform that solely support for the preservation of Confederate monuments benefited White European immigrants. He spoke (see Image 2). disparagingly about Muslims and African Americans (particularly Black Lives Matter protestors and African American activists athletes, such as Colin Kaepernick). He issued a travel ban to the United States (in the form of an executive order) for six predominately Muslim countries. Later he referred to the predominantly Black nation Haiti as well as African countries as “shitholes.” In his first year, he railed against violent or terrorist attacks committed by Muslims or people of color while usually ignoring those acts committed by Whites. Furthermore, in a July, 2017 speech to members of law enforcement in Long Island, he encouraged the use of excessive force, an ongoing and serious issue among communities of color.

What should students understand about the Lost Cause movement? College instructors might want to examine the building of Confederate monuments, why these statues are controversial today, and their impact on college campuses. For example, prior to the start of the 2017 fall semester, I

revised my course syllabus AFS 310—African Americans and U.S. Education. During the first five weeks of the

RADICAL TEACHER 50 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.478 semester, we examined the aftermath of Charlottesville, am aware 1) that Confederate monuments, flags, mascots, including the political discourse surrounding it. We looked etc. are not obscure symbols but are connected to a larger at this nation’s Confederate legacy (monuments, emblems, system designed to maintain White supremacy (in many mascots, and the like) on college campuses. This article will ways), and 2) these Confederate symbols, monuments, and explore the unit I taught, “The Lost Cause and the mascots are not bound by a region. Collegiate Idea,” including a discussion of the readings and Even though Colorado was not even a state during the other materials used. The unit includes a student years of the Civil War, there are symbols throughout the assessment and outcomes upon completion of the unit. state as well as Weld County, Colorado that reflect the preservation of White supremacy, the genocide of Why Teach the Lost Cause? indigenous peoples, and the Confederate legacy. Colorado has a Confederate legacy with active chapters of the Sons The fall semester began just over a week after the of the Confederate Veterans. During the height of the Gold deadly Unite the Right rally. I knew that this tragedy would Rush during the 1850s, southerners migrated to southern be a major topic of discussion both on campus and in my Colorado for economic opportunities. When the Civil War classes. The climate on my campus, the University of commenced in 1861, many stayed and organized Northern Colorado and especially in the community during Confederate partisan companies participating in armed the election season reflected the sentiments of those who conflicts throughout the war in the territory and region. sought to preserve Confederate monuments. UNC, which Furthermore, in wake of the battle of Fort Sumter in was originally the state’s normal school founded in 1889, is Charleston, South Carolina in 1861 the stars and bars flag now a public baccalaureate and graduate research – the first national flag - flew over the Wallingford & university. The campus is located in Greeley, Colorado Murphy store in Denver (Colton, 1959). (Weld County), a historically conservative, rural, White In concert with the monument building campaigns community located approximately sixty miles north of across the country during the turn of the century, a Denver. According to the institution’s fall 2017 census data, Confederate monument was erected in Greenwood Black/African American students made up approximately Cemetery in Canon City Colorado in 1899. Most recently, 4.2% of a student body comprised of 13,087 students (this the Sons of the Confederate veterans installed a memorial includes 3,076 graduate students). Weld County has a 1% at Riverside Cemetery in Denver in 2003 (see Image 3). Black/African American population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. During the 2016 presidential campaign cycle, Trump held a rally on my campus that resulted in high tension among the students. Prior to the start of the rally, a group mostly of African American male university students were racially profiled, confronted by law enforcement and security at the rally, and subsequently ejected from the arena (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMZsKq99hdk, Right Side Broadcasting Network, 2016; see 6:45–13:50). Trump won Weld County by 57% of the votes cast on Election Day.

Although I have had a relatively positive experience at this institution and in the community at large, there has been a long troubled history both on campus and in the community in which people of color (particularly Black/African American people) have been racially profiled and/or harassed. In the last fifteen years, there were incidents where UNC faculty, staff, and students of color IMAGE 3. COLORADO’S SONS OF CONFEDERATE VETERANS MEMORIAL have had death threats or threats of violence leveled at LOCATED AT RIVERSIDE CEMETERY (DENVER, CO) IS ON ONE OF SIX CONFEDERATE MEMORIALS IN THE STATE OF COLORADO. PHOTO COURTESY them, a case of workplace harassment, and/or the OF THE AUTHOR (MAY 27, 2018). nonrenewal of administrative assistant’s contract (George, 2007). Most recently, a then-UNC graduate student To date there are six Confederate monuments suffered a broken arm during an arrest after a party by throughout the state. Two of them sit on public land that Greeley police. The arresting officers charged the student honors both sides: Pitkin County Courthouse near Aspen with second-degree assault (a felony) when she apparently and in Beulah (Kovaleski, 2017). Moreover, in Kiowah slipped on ice during the arrest, accidently elbowing the County, lies the monument of the Sand Creek Massacre. In officer (Simmons, 2017). Furthermore, flyers promoting November of 1864, close to 700 U.S. soldiers massacred Identity Evropa have circulated around campus and a and mutilated at minimum 154 Native Americans; primarily campus chapter of the right-wing student organization Cheyenne and Arapaho women and children (Kelman, Turning Point USA has been established at my home 2015). Furthermore, approximately ten miles north from institution. my home institution is Eaton High School, known in As an African American from South Carolina who interscholastic sports as “The Fighting Reds.” Approximately protested for the removal of the Confederate flag on the thirty-four miles south is the Confederate-themed “Rebels” statehouse dome in college approximately 18 years ago, I sports team of Weld Central High School (See Image 4).

RADICAL TEACHER 51 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.478 American educational experience. These issues are part of both the desegregation of schools and the White massive resistance movements.

The White nationalists and neo- Nazis who marched in Charlottesville fundamentally sought to preserve monuments, emblems, and traditions that upheld White supremacy. For this unit I was most interested in a similar issue: why do American colleges and universities seek to keep Confederate traditions that are divisive and inherently racist? Furthermore, what is the primary motivation for a sitting U.S. president or any elected official to support Confederate monuments?

IMAGE 4. THE EATON HIGH SCHOOL “FIGHTING REDS” & THE WELD CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL “REBELS” Remembering Our Racist MASCOT. NOTE: THE WELD CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL “REBEL” REBEL MASCOT REPRESENTED IN FILE ABOVE IS ALSO THE MASCOT OF WELD CENTRAL MIDDLE SCHOOL. PHOTO COURTESY OF THE GREELEY Past TRIBUNE.

The unit in each week was organized into subthemes. In the first week of the In wake of the tragic events in Charlottesville, semester, the class reviewed a history of the Lost Cause combined with the climate both on campus and in the movement and a definition of the collegiate idea. My community, I thought it was important to provide an students were familiar with the Confederate flag, intellectual space to interrogate the literature on the Lost monuments, and symbols, but not the Lost Cause Cause and Confederate symbols. Students would have a movement and certainly not how it is embedded into the chance to see how this theme is embedded physically and culture of many of our nation’s colleges and universities. I culturally into college campuses across the country. used Cynthia Mills and Pamela H. Simpson’s edited volume, A class such as African Americans and U.S. Education Monuments to the Lost Cause: Women, Art, and the is the ideal time to include a unit on the discussion of the Landscapes of Southern Memory; Sanford Levison’s Written Lost Cause and Confederate symbols on college campuses. in Stone: Public Monuments in Changing Times; and James In past classes, I have led brief discussions on the Lost Loewen’s Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Cause, particularly at the time the students learned about Wrong, among other scholarly books as references in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision and massive lecture. We screened Vice News’s provocative, 2018 resistance movement. (For example, we covered the Little Peabody Award-winning documentary, Charlottesville: Race Rock School Crisis in 1957 and the desegregation of the and Terror, which I followed by an in-class discussion. My University of Mississippi in 1962.) Thus discussing the students were horrified yet highly interested in the film. I aftermath of Charlottesville presented an opportunity to gave them an open forum to reflect on the news story and deeply explore what the Lost Cause means. apply the events/aftermath of Charlottesville to their daily lives. They looked at the event’s effect both on national politics (in terms of Trumpism) as well as on issues they Unit: The Lost Cause and the Collegiate have been grappling with on campus, particularly during Idea the 2016 election season on campus. In the next class meeting, I made connections to the African Americans and U.S. Education is a 300- Vice News documentary by grounding the Robert E. Lee level/upper-division undergraduate course housed in the protest within the historical context of the Lost Cause Africana Studies Program at UNC. This a required course for movement. I covered the rise and fall of the Reconstruction Africana Studies majors (BA: Liberal Arts and BA: Social era, the Redemption movement, the age of Jim Crow, and Studies Secondary Teaching emphasis majors) and an ultimately the construction of Confederate monuments by optional elective for Africana Studies minors. Historically, the early twentieth century. Citing Levison (1998), I noted elementary education majors who tended to be White and that the construction and erection of Confederate female took this class. Most recently, students enrolled in monuments across the country was the Lost Cause AFS 310 were predominately students of color and were movement’s greatest achievement. Furthermore, citing either Africana Studies majors /minors or non-majors Loewen (1999) and Mills (2003), I provided the class with a interested in the course title. Because my course covers the definition of the Lost Cause movement. I indicated that the history of African Americans in U.S. education, I titled this Lost Cause movement was specifically grounded in a unit’s theme “The Lost Cause and the Collegiate Idea” revisionist historical narrative that portrayed the because both issues are prominent within the African

RADICAL TEACHER 52 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.478 Confederacy, the White South, and the institution of slavery members of the fraternity that constructed a “Make in a positive light. I cited Carol Emberton’s Beyond America Great Again” wall around their fraternity house at Redemption: Race, Violence, and the American South after Tulane University (see Image 5). the Civil War, concluding that White supremacy, racial reconciliation (between White Northerners and Southerners), and patriotism was used to support the Lost Cause narrative. I noted that often times, the Lost Cause narrative relies on slogans and chants. Most notably, the motto “The South Shall Rise Again” is popularly shouted during the playing of “From Dixie with Love” by the University of Mississippi’s marching band.

Next I provided a definition of the “collegiate idea” and how it is connected to the Confederate legacy. My students found this part of lecture fairly interesting because it directly applied to their collegiate experiences (convocation time, the start of the college football season, Greek Life recruitment season, and the reintroduction to college traditions). Referencing historian J. Douglas Toma (2003), I defined the collegiate idea as “the combination of community and campus culture associated with the traditional American small college” (p. 5). I cited examples of the collegiate idea such as school mascots, songs, and traditions, among others. To humor my students, I showed a YouTube clip of Auburn University students toilet- papering or “rolling” the famous oak trees at the iconic Toomer’s Corner, a tradition performed after major athletic victories. Although there are positive aspects of the collegiate idea that have evolved to be inclusive to all members of the student body, there are college traditions that are deeply rooted in the Lost Cause narrative. IMAGE 5. IN 2016 MEMBERS OF KAPPA ALPHA ORDER FRATERNITY AT TULANE We examined southern colleges and universities that UNIVERSITY (NEW ORLEANS) CONSTRUCTED “TRUMP’S WALL” ON THE FRONT PORCH OF THEIR FRATERNITY HOUSE. THIS PROVIDES AN INTERESTING had embedded the Lost Cause and Confederate symbols JUXTAPOSITION OF KAPPA ALPHA ORDER BROTHERS AT A RALLY POSING both physically and culturally within their traditions. This WITH A CONFEDERATE FLAG ON THE CAMPUS OF EAST CAROLINA UNIVERSITY IN 1960. PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE TULANE HULLABALOO AND EAST list included mascots (i.e. Ole Miss Rebel—Colonel Reb), the CAROLINA UNIVERSITY DIGITAL COLLECTIONS. use of the Confederate battle flag as symbol at athletic events, the support of racist and exclusive institutional This image, in particular, helped my students see a policies such as racial segregation, the longing for an historical connection that also had a contemporary ethnocentric campus (and subsequently society), and perspective. exclusive racist secret/Greek-lettered societies. My students were particularly intrigued by the troubled history I cautioned my students that although Greek Life was of Greek Life on southern campuses where the Lost Cause historically at the helm of reproducing the Lost Cause culture was embedded in various aspects of collegiate life. culture on their respective campuses, there were other Citing Anthony James’s book chapter titled “Political ways that schools maintained Lost Cause narratives, such Parties: College Social Fraternities, Manhood, and the as through non-Greek lettered organizations, institutional Defense of Southern Traditionalism, 1945–1960,” I noted policies, and traditions such as songs, mascots, and athletic that it was college fraternities on Southern campuses that teams. To conclude week 1, students read and discussed brought the Lost Cause collegiate ideas to their respective Sandra Knispel’s 2014 National Public Radio (NPR) article, schools. This was primarily in concert with the rise of the “‘Ole Miss’ Debates Campus Traditions with Confederate Dixiecrat (Southern Democrats) movement in 1948 and Roots.” As noted in the short article, by 2014 the university massive resistance to school desegregation. These was in process of making major changes to many of its organizations memorialized the Lost Cause, donning traditions (such as the Rebel Mascot). Based on my Confederate uniforms at fraternity formals as well as at on- students’ reactions both in class and on the discussion campus events (James, 2008). I performed a Google image board, it is clear that Lost Cause culture is so normalized search (“Kappa Alpha Order” and “Confederate”) and that it can be easily overlooked and accepted as neutral. showed my students some provocative images. While there The insidious normalization of symbols of historical racism were many vintage photos of fraternity members in Kappa is one reason why it is so important that students learn Alpha Order in Confederate uniforms and posing with the about the Lost Cause movement and why it is relevant Confederate flag, my students were taken aback to find today, especially on college campuses. Thus in laying out a contemporary photos of Kappa Alpha Order reproducing the framework for this unit, I made sure that students had memorializing of the Lost Cause, similar to their three things to review: a definition of the Lost Cause and predecessors. One image in particular is a photo of the Collegiate Idea; primary and secondary sources (via

RADICAL TEACHER 53 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.478 Google image search); and the screening of a relevant of Ole Miss was struggling to figure out how to documentary/investigative news report. These three things integrate students without giving up traditions. set the stage for a smooth introduction of the class and the Predominately white establishments like Ole Miss in the semester. Over the next three weeks, we discussed case South have histories that are closely connected to a studies and examples of how the Lost Cause is embedded deeply divided and racist past. As a result, the campus in college culture. is more hostile for students of color. Things like confederate mascots and flags all contribute to a hostile environment. Normalizing the Lost Cause: “Ole Miss,” Racism is not just part of daily human interaction, but and Campus Traditions it is also embedded in our social organizations. Concurring with that student, I reminded her, as well as the class, that We devoted week 2 to examining the Confederate it is important to not take lightly the events in legacy of the University of Mississippi. We screened in class Charlottesville and the current state of politics. Overall, I a documentary in ESPN’s “30 for 30” series called The Ghosts of Ole Miss. Furthermore, as homework I required was pleased and excited to see my students taking ownership of this topic. my class to watch the highly acclaimed Civil Rights documentary series Eyes on the Prize: Fighting Back, 1957–1962; specifically the section that covers James Fuzzy Memories Meredith and the desegregation of the University of Mississippi. The footage of these films shows what it was During week 3, we focused specifically on college like to be a student at the University of Mississippi during mascots. While there is a Confederate legacy in terms of this era. Most notably, students took away from the collegiate mascots, I focused the lecture, film screening (In documentary clear examples of how the Lost Cause was not Whose Honor, 1997), and required class reading to broader only embedded in the institution’s history, but also in issues such as the exploitation of Native Americans as Mississippi politics (similar to the present in national politics mascots in high school, collegiate, and professional sports. pertaining to the Lost Cause debate). For example, on I emphasized to the class that the use of Native Americans September 29, 1962 Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett held as mascots by non-Native American schools is a de facto rally at halftime of a Mississippi-Kentucky presumptuous. I cited examples in my lecture where some football game denouncing the Kennedy administration and collegiate teams (Stanford, St. Johns, Marquette University) the desegregation of the University of Mississippi (see have changed their Native American mascots. But other Image 6). universities continue to hang on to theirs (Florida State University, University of Illinois, University of Utah). This also includes high school interscholastic sports teams throughout the country such as the local Eaton High School (Colorado) “Fighting Reds,” as well as the Riverside High School (Greer, South Carolina) Warriors, whose home football stadium is insensitively named “The Reservation.”

Perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of the collegiate idea is the university’s identity in terms of their mascot. I cited examples of unknown or unusual collegiate team names. For instance, my home institution’s original mascot was the Teachers for its identity as historically the state’s normal school—and is now the Bears. In another example, there’s the University of Kansas Jayhawks. That name can be traced back to the American Civil War, which IMAGE 6. MISSISSIPPI GOVERNOR ROSS BARNETT ATTENDING A led us to this week’s required reading: Meagan Bever’s MISSISSIPPI-KENTUCKY FOOTBALL GAME IN JACKSON, MS (SEPT. 1962). PHOTO COURTESY OF JIM BOURDIER/ASSOCIATED PRESS. “Fuzzy Memories: College Mascots and the Struggle to Find Appropriate Legacies of the Civil War,” published in the Journal of Sport History. Bever (2011) examines the origins To conclude the week, students read and discussed (on of the mascot names of the University of Kansas the online discussion board) W. Ralph Eubanks’s “A Black (Jayhawks), the University of Missouri (Tigers), and the Student Confronts the Racial Legacy of Ole Miss,” published University of Mississippi (Rebels), all connected to violence in The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. One student and the American Civil War. For better or for worse, my noted on the discussion board that she realized how racism students took away from this article the importance of becomes institutionalized. The student explained, history in terms of location and of the collegiate idea. They At one point the article said "the culture, heritage, and were able to see the problem behind today’s continued use traditions of the school stood as barriers..." I think that of controversial mascots or mascot names, ones that refer is a problem that the entire nation faces when it comes to the Lost Cause and that reinforce White supremacy. to addressing racism. It's in everything. Racism is literally built into the foundation of the country, so it is really hard to find and address. Similarly, the campus

RADICAL TEACHER 54 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.478 The Invented Tradition of the South Double-spaced in a 12-point, Times New Roman font, with 1-inch margins During week 4, we focused the discussion specifically Reference page provided of all works cited on collegiate sports and the Lost Cause. Based on documentary screenings of The Ghosts of Ole Miss and Eyes Employ the readings we have read in class to on the Prize, my students had some visual references of cite your work and at least one relevant Confederate symbols in connection with collegiate sports. source (such as films, podcasts, newspaper Therefore, we spent part of this week interrogating Derrick articles, primary documents—speeches, White’s “Desegregation to Integration: Race, Football, and writings, and so forth) ‘Dixie’ at the University of Florida,” published in the Florida Historical Quarterly. We also did searches on Google and Overall, my students did an extraordinary job; granted YouTube seeking primary and secondary sources of this was their first assignment for the semester and in a Confederate symbols in relationship to college sports. writing format that required them to analyze and critique Directly related to this week’s reading, we successfully rather than regurgitate. One of my students, for example, uncovered a YouTube clip as well as images on a Google situated her review through the lens of the unspoken search of the University of Florida’s 1962 football team history of Southern colleges. Another student reviewed the when they wore Confederate flag decals on their helmets article through the lens of sports and the Lost Cause, as the during a bowl game (the Gator Bowl) against Pennsylvania article talked about the University of Virginia’s football State University in a north versus south match up. As I team. Perhaps one of the most interesting reviews was mentioned in week 1, the memorializing of the Lost Cause written by a student whose theme centered on institutional narrative was not exclusively within Greek Life culture, but racism and White male fragility. That student successfully found its way into various groups at the university, most linked UVA’s confederate history to the present, particularly notably athletics and subsequently could be embedded in connecting the images of predominately White men various aspects society. marching with tiki torches to protest their racial superiority (who subsequently became backed by the sitting president At the close of week 4, I noted that it had been over a of the United States). This student’s take on White male month since the disastrous Unite the Right Rally in fragility is indeed relevant to history in terms of the Lost Charlottesville. While my students still found the topic Cause movement and White supremacy as well as interesting, it was indeed time for me to assess what they reinforcement of the current political discourse of had learned and to move on to other topics in relationship Trumpism. As historian Trent Watts (2008) notes in his to African Americans and U.S. education. The next section edited volume, White Masculinity in the Recent South, will briefly explore their assessment activity and its White masculinity has so long been embedded as the outcomes. authority of political, social, and cultural norms of the South that racism appears to be natural and “sanctioned by history or by a higher authority” (p. 8). This ideology is From Charlottesville to Weld County: indeed reinforced in the common narrative that White Assessment, Outcomes, and Conclusion males in recent years are losing ground in terms of power. It subsequently resulted in the 63% White male vote for Since African Americans and U.S. Education is a 300- Trump in the 2016 election, the spike in membership in Neo level, upper-division undergraduate course, I was more Nazi and other White supremacists groups, and finally the interested in assessing what my students had learned in a images of predominately White men marching in form of a take-home writing assignment as opposed to an Charlottesville. in-class exam. For their assessment, students were required to review the peer-reviewed journal article, “Flag- Upon the completion of this unit, an ugly racial incident Waving Wahoos: Confederate Symbols at the University of allegedly occurred. On Friday, September 22, the Weld Virginia, 1941–51” published in The Virginia Magazine of Central High School (Rebels) traveled to Denver, Colorado History and Biography. I purposely chose this article for two to play a football game against Manual High School reasons. First, aspects of the Lost Cause and the collegiate (Thunderbolts), a predominately Black/African American idea are not solely exclusive to Deep South colleges and school. According to witnesses (including Manual High universities, but also affect elite, nationally ranked, School’s principal, Nick Dawkins), fans from Weld Central selective universities such as the University of Virginia. wore Confederate paraphernalia, flew the Confederate Second, this article comes back full circle to Charlottesville, battle flag, and the players from Weld Central hurled racial Virginia. slurs at their opponents (Finley, 2017). While the Weld Central camp denies the allegations, it is clear that they The purpose of this kind of intellectual exercise is to 1) hold the Confederate-themed Rebel persona near and dear help students critique scholarly work in an objective to their hearts. They are in concert with predecessors who manner, and 2) get students in the habit of providing a supported the Lost Cause during the era of Jim Crow, as unique perspective of a scholarly discussion of any given well as those who marched in Charlottesville in August. topic. The writing guidelines consisted of the following: Although we were done with this unit, we briefly discussed At least 1,250 words in length this situation in class the following week as well as related issues throughout the semester such as Richard Spencer’s Work is cited in APA citation style October 7th “flash mob” rally in in Charlottesville where approximately 50 White nationalists rallied at the Robert E.

RADICAL TEACHER 55 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.478 Lee monument. In agreement with the “The Lost Cause and duke-charlottesville-rally- the Collegiate Idea,” the group sung Dixie-- the unofficial trump_us_598f3ca8e4b0909642974a10 anthem of the Confederate States of America and the old James, A. (2008). Political parties: College social fraternities, fight song for the University of Mississippi--performed the manhood, and the defense of southern traditionalism, 1945– “rebel yell” and finally chanted “The South Shall Rise Again” 1960. In T. Watts (Ed.), White masculinity in the recent and “Russia is Our Friend” – a dog whistle noting their South (63–85). Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University support for Donald Trump (Svrluga, 2017). By the Press. semester’s end, we covered interesting main topics that Kelman, A. (2015). Remembering Sand Creek on the Eve of Its reflected the spirit of the course and its student-learning Sesquicentennial. Journal of the Civil War Era, 5(2), 195-203. outcomes. These topics included “The Founding and Knispel, S. (2014, Oct. 25). “Ole Miss” debates campus traditions Intellectual Missions of Black Institutions,” “Brown v. Board with Confederate roots. NPR (National Public Radio). Retrieved of Education and its National Impact,” “Elite Black from http://www.npr.org/2014/10/25/358871799/ole-miss- Institutions, Organizations, and Secret Societies,” and debates-campus-traditions-with-confederate-roots “Interscholastic Sports Teams.” Although students found Kovaleski, J. (2017 Aug. 16). Colorado has six confederate the class helpful and interesting, they enjoyed the most our monuments, one in Denver. The Denver Channel. Retrieved interrogation of the Lost Cause, Confederate from monuments/symbols, as well as the aftermath of https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/politics/colorado- Charlottesville. This unit gave them a clear understanding has-six-confederate-monuments-one-in-denver of how something as superficial as a flag or monument can Levinson, S. (1998). Written in stone: Public monuments in serve as reminders of the racism and White supremacy that changing societies. Durham, NC and London: Duke are deeply embedded in our institutions, laws, and schools. University Press. They now have the content knowledge to challenge these Loewen, J. (1999). Lies across America: What our historic sites get historical stones, even when a sitting president supports it. wrong. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Mills, C. (2003). Introduction. In C. Mills & P. H. Simpson (Eds.), Works Cited Monuments to the lost cause: Women, art, and the landscapes of the southern memory (xv–xxx). Knoxville, TN: The Bever, M. (2011). Fuzzy memories: College mascots and the University of Tennessee Press. struggle to find appropriate legacies of the Civil War. Journal Nehls, Christopher C. (2002). Flag-waving wahoos: Confederate of Sport History, 38(3), 447–463. symbols at the University of Virginia, 1941–51. The Virginia Colton, R.C. (1959). The Civil War in the Western Territories: Magazine of History and Biography, 110(4), 461–488. Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. Norman: University Right Side Broadcasting Network. (2016, October 30). Full speech: of Oklahoma Press. Donald Trump rally in Greeley, CO 10/30/16 [Video File]. Emberton, C. (2013). Beyond redemption: Race, violence, and the Retrieved from American South after the Civil War. Chicago: The University of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMZsKq99hdk Chicago Press. Simmons, T. (2017 March 9). Jury returns mixed verdict in case of Eubanks, W. R. (2004). A Black student confronts the racial legacy UNC student accused of second-degree assault of police officer. of Ole Miss. The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, (43), The Greeley Tribune. Retrieved from 106–111. https://www.greeleytribune.com/news/crime/jury-deliberating- in-case-of-unc-student-accused-of-second-degree-assault-of- Finley, B. (2017, Sept. 25). Weld school’s leaders counter Denver police-officer/ high school’s allegations, saying no Confederate flag was displayed at football game. Denver Post. Retrieved from Svrluga, S. (2017 October 9). “We will keep coming back:” Richard https://www.denverpost.com/2017/09/25/weld-schools- Spencer leads another march in Charlottesville. The leaders-counter-denver-high-schools-allegations-saying-no- Washington Post. Retrieved from confederate-flag-was-displayed-at-football-game/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade- point/wp/2017/10/07/richard-spencer-leads-another- George, H. (2007 March 12). UNC faculty, students demand torchlight-march-in- change. The Greeley Tribune. Retrieved from charlottesville/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.60b2bcd0221d https://www.greeleytribune.com/news/local/unc-faculty- students-demand-change/ Toma, J. Douglas. (2003). Football U: Spectator sports in the life of the American university. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Gray, R. (2017, Aug. 15). Trump defends White-Nationalists Press. protestors: “Some Very Fine People on Both Sides.” The Atlantic. Retrieved from Watts, T. (2008). Introduction: Telling White Men’s Stories. In T. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/08/trump- Watts (Ed.), White masculinity in the recent South (1-29). defends-white-nationalist-protesters-some-very-fine-people- Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press. on-both-sides/537012/ White, D. (2010). From desegregation to integration: Race, football, Hanson, H. (2017, August 8). Ex-KKK leader David Duke says White and "Dixie" at the University of Florida. The Florida Historical supremacists will “fulfill” Trump promises. Huffington Post. Quarterly, 88(4), 469–496. Retrieved from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/david-

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RADICAL TEACHER 56 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.478 ISSN: 1941-0832

Pushing the Line: Teaching Suburban Seventh Graders to be Critically Conscious through Historical Inquiry and Civic Letter-Writing

by Andy Beutel

PHOTO BY RAWPIXEL

RADICAL TEACHER 57 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.472

school district while engaging in critical teaching? To what Introduction extent can I push non-marginalized students to think and write critically through a social justice lens while avoiding “This is as close to the line as you can get without an indoctrinating style and maintaining space for student- crossing it.” This was the response from my supervisor centered inquiry? when I explained a new project I developed for my seventh grade social studies students. I teach in a high-achieving K-12 public school district located in an affluent, suburban Description of School District, Course, and conservative town and this statement is instructive for and Culture understanding the challenges and envisioning the possibilities of critical teaching with non-marginalized Mountainview, New Jersey is an upper-middle class students in the Age of Trumpism. suburban community located about 25 miles from New York City with a population of 26,000 and a median The ascendance of Trump to the presidency has household income of $106,875. The Mountainview Public created an urgent opportunity to engage students in a School District serves students in the town from meaningful and critical analysis of our government, kindergarten through 12th grade. Mountainview Middle military, economy, and society. We have a president who School currently has 753 students in grades 6-8 of which has demonstrated a disturbing lack of knowledge regarding the students are 78% white, 10% Asian, 7% Hispanic, 3% both US and world history (Le Miere, 2017) and a casual Black, and 2% of two or more races.[i] disregard for the facts (DePaulo, 2017). Trump’s ahistorical and fact-less approach to the presidency threatens our The Mountainview Public School District boasts high democracy and democratic norms and calls for a pedagogy levels of student achievement. The high school graduation that focuses on justice-oriented content while placing an rate is 96% and half of the students there take Advanced emphasis on evidence-based arguments. Placement courses. Students at Mountainview Middle School outperform the state average each year on standardized assessments and go on to either attend the The ascendance of Trump to the district high school or one of the nearby private or magnet presidency has created an urgent schools. Students in seventh grade experience a broad and opportunity to engage students in a diverse curriculum which features core courses of math, meaningful and critical analysis of science, social studies, language arts, and a foreign our government, military, economy, language as well as health and physical education and and society. shorter cycle courses including art, public presentation, service learning, robotics, and Internet research. Within these classes, students are often engaged in student- Education is not a neutral endeavor (Zinn, 1994). centered, project-based learning and are expected to read, Students should be exposed to issues occurring in their write and think analytically. The school would most closely school, town, state, country and world and understand why resemble what Anyon (1980) classified as an “affluent and how they are affected by these issues. Teachers can professional school” in terms of both socioeconomic facilitate this process by seeking to elevate and transform demographics as well as curricular and instructional the consciousness of students and help them see approach. In this context, inquiry-based learning and a possibilities for change (hooks, 1994). Fortunately, focus on higher-level analysis and critical thinking is students are more interested in current events and politics encouraged; in fact, this philosophy is reflected throughout than I have seen in previous years, a trend that has been the social studies course description on the district’s noted in schools across the country (Harris, 2017). website. However, there is also a legitimate concern among teachers of backlash by administrators and parents when However, in my experience, while this style of broaching political topics with our students (Kenworthy, instruction is promoted, the content of that instruction is 2017). As such, while the need for critical education is more scrutinized. For example, when teaching about Islam clear, especially in the time of Trump, the means to last year, a parent and member of the district’s Board of practice such teaching is complicated. Education, questioned the project I assigned about Islam even though students had completed a nearly identical In the inquiry-based learning project I will describe, I project about Christianity earlier in the year. As part of that combine critical pedagogy theory with historical literacy same unit, I developed a lesson focused on Trump’s travel pedagogy in order to enable seventh grade students in a ban and the advice from my supervisor beforehand was: world history course to critique current problems in the “Be careful and remember where you teach”. Despite the United States under Trump through the comparative fact that many teachers and administrators in the district analysis of different historical and modern sources and are progressive in their individual politics, there is a action-based letter-writing to the president. general apprehension about combining politics with pedagogy. Several questions guided this work: To what extent can a seventh grade world history course be an effective This year I am teaching 92 students across four venue for students to consider and critique problems in the sections of the seventh grade social studies course. While US under Trump? How can I navigate the current political the course ostensibly focuses on world history, geography climate and constraints of an affluent, suburban public and culture, I have used the historical content as a

RADICAL TEACHER 58 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.472 platform for exposing students to contemporary issues and Inquiry Project in Action: Lessons, helping them think critically about social justice themes that transcend time and place like inequality, Struggles and Successes discrimination, and war and peace. This is where I find I began the project with an introductory lesson myself constantly flirting with “the line” referenced earlier. focused on how the decline and fall of the Roman Empire Using documents to drive instruction, encouraging students can serve as a cautionary tale for modern empires like the to develop and share their perspectives, creating a sense United States. After assigning a brief textual overview of of balance in the content, and not explicitly sharing my the decline of Rome, I had students free-write and discuss political views, has generally been seen (based on feedback the challenges they see facing the country today. This or lack thereof from students, parents and administrators) introduction served as the foundation for the next seven as not crossing the line. My current struggle is how to lessons, each of which focused on a different factor leading operate within these constraints, while pushing students to to Rome’s fall and comparable problems in the US today: be more critically conscious and not falling prey to false societal divisions, economic inequality, political instability equivalencies and normalization in the Age of Trumpism. and a lack of trust in government, taxation and economic policies, overexpansion and military spending, migration and refugees, and ongoing wars and military decline. Description and Theory of the Inquiry- Based Learning Project Over the course of the following lessons, two noteworthy trends emerged as I attempted to push I designed this project as an inquiry-based study in students to be more critically conscious through document- which each day students would examine a different factor based inquiry, discussion and writing. First, the students leading to the Roman Empire’s decline and, in the same struggled to understand and/or resisted acknowledging lesson, analyze how the United States is dealing with the these contemporary issues as systemic problems. This parallel issue today. The culminating assignment for this dynamic occurred for three reasons: a lack of experience project was writing and sending a letter to the president and interaction with marginalized groups in society, only explaining the lessons he can learn from the fall of the having lived during a time of endless war and widespread Roman Empire in the context of comparable problems mistrust in government, and their collectively-advantaged facing the country today. The inquiry model is the socioeconomic position. Second, as students analyzed and instructional approach embedded in critical pedagogy discussed these issues in class, one of three reactions (Friere, 1997; hooks, 1994; Swalwell, 2013) but it is also occurred: some were moved to embrace a critically- reflective of a new understanding of historical literacy and conscious position in their writing, some only moved a little history instruction that emphasizes skills such as analysis, but not to the point of supporting a systemic change in synthesis and writing for understanding as part of teaching society, and some were completely unmoved. Due to the historical content (Downey & Long, 2016). similarities in the class discussions, pedagogical challenges and student responses, I have grouped the lessons together as follows: 1) societal divisions with migration and What lessons can the president refugees; 2) political instability and mistrust in government and country learn from the fall of with overexpansion and military spending as well as Rome? ongoing war and military decline; and 3) economic inequality with taxation and economic policies.

The guiding question for this inquiry study was: What Societal Divisions & Migration and Refugees lessons can the president and country learn from the fall of Students began the lesson on societal divisions by Rome? In each lesson, students would end class by considering the importance of unity in a country. Students returning to that overarching question in the context of the noted the value of people feeling connected to one another specific problem that was the focus of that day (Wiggins and that a country is stronger when people are not divided. and McTighe, 1998). These written reflections helped Next, they analyzed a timeline illustrating the rise of students synthesize their understanding of the topic and Christianity in the context of Rome’s decline and read an served as the content for their letters (Downey & Long, excerpt about internal conflicts that arose in Rome as a 2016). The letter-writing assignment was an attempt to result of the growth of Christianity. Students then have students politically engage with the world outside the examined images reflecting societal divisions in the US classroom through their writing. (Christensen, 2000). including the violence at Charlottesville, NFL players taking Ultimately, this project was designed to help students a knee, Black Lives Matter protests, and vandalism of a synthesize historical content (Downey & Long, 2016), Jewish cemetery and a Muslim mosque and charts develop a critical awareness and understanding of issues in featuring statistics on discrimination such as the perception the US, and introduce them to concept of civic action of how Black Americans are treated, the reported levels of (Freire, 1997; hooks, 1994). discrimination among American Muslims, and the percentage of LGBT youth who have heard negative messages about being LGBT.

The discussion that ensued across my classes was both interesting and frustrating. Of all the information presented, the most common topic of discussion was about

RADICAL TEACHER 59 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.472 NFL players like Colin Kaepernick kneeling in protest during The students’ writing mirrored the divide evident in the the national anthem. The students dominating the class discussions. Some students, like Bryce, argued that discussion expressed outrage over Kaepernick’s actions Rome’s problem stemmed from their mistreatment of and characterized him as disrespectful to the military, flag migrants and refugees and therefore focused on the need and country. I was careful not to explicitly share my own for the US to treat immigrants and refugees better. He views but explained that Kaepernick was kneeling as an act suggested: “The U.S. should relieve tension between of protest against racial injustice throughout the country undocumented immigrants and U.S. citizens by being a and referred the students back to the data shared earlier. role model. They should also further develop a humane However, most students continued to focus on the action way to deal with undocumented immigrants that is agreed and individual as opposed to the issue of systemic racism upon by the public.” Here Bryce wrote about the in America. This inability or unwillingness to see the issue importance of our government leading on this issue with instead of the person exposed the difficulty non- humanity, thus demonstrating empathy for an oppressed marginalized students have with understanding a problem and unfamiliar population. that doesn’t affect them directly. The reality is that the overwhelming majority of students have a different lived experience than those who are affected by racial The struggle for the students discrimination. when learning about the plight of undocumented immigrants and However, several students were moved by the data refugees extends from the fact that and discussion. For example, Aly, wrote: “In the U.S people are not accepted for their race, beliefs, color, or they are culturally and other people from their race. This is not good and can lead geographically removed from the to something greater than riots and that will be very bad issue. for the future of the U.S.” Here, Aly recognized societal divisions as a problem but only insofar as it causes a However, even when exposed to new information and disruption to the status quo. Ellie went further in her pushed on this issue, there were students who remained response, writing: “We need to please try to unite our unmoved from their position. Some, like Riley, understood country instead of dividing it by discrimination, racism and Rome’s mistake as taking in too many immigrants and isolating minority groups. Humanity will always have its refugees and therefore the lesson for the US is to deport flaws but we can at least try to make this world a better more and take in less. She argued that Trump should place.” This response reflects a sense of hopefulness and a “...not let illegal immigrants into the country. I think this vision that a society free of racism and discrimination is because they could attack and bomb the country when beneficial for all, including those who are not directly they are not even supposed to be there. Another problem affected by its far-reaching effects. is that they could steal and take many things.” This A related discussion and dynamic developed in the sentiment reveals what Seider (2008) warned about lesson covering migration and refugees. In that lesson, suburban students fearing the loss of their privilege and students analyzed a map of migrations into Rome during what Swalwell (2013) noted about the limitations of critical the 4th and 5th centuries and watched a video clip about teaching with a non-marginalized population. The struggle the migration of the Visigoths into Rome as refugees as for the students when learning about the plight of well as the subsequent mistreatment by the Romans and undocumented immigrants and refugees extends from the rebellion by the Visigoths. Next, students examined a fact that they are culturally and geographically removed graph showing the numbers of undocumented immigrants from the issue. For most, this topic doesn’t connect with in the US and a chart illustrating the increase in arrests of their lives in a personal way. These students do not know undocumented immigrants by Immigration and Customs people who have been deported or experienced an ICE raid Enforcement under Trump in 2017 compared to the same and this student’s response reflects that lack of period in 2016 under Obama. Students then analyzed a understanding as well as a disregard for people who live map and chart showing the impact of the Syrian refugee that reality. crisis and how few refugees the US has taken in compared Political Instability and Mistrust in Government, to other countries. Overexpansion and Military Spending, & Ongoing War and Military Decline This data led to one of the more divisive discussions. Many sought to justify deportations because of the fact Students began the lesson on political instability and that undocumented immigrants came to the US illegally. mistrust in government by discussing the idea of trust, the On the other hand, some students expressed concern over value of people trusting the government and what leads the number of refugees caused by the war in Syria and the citizens to lose trust in their government. There was broad relatively low number the US has accepted. I was careful consensus among the students that if people lose trust in not to explicitly share my view and instead posed questions the government it can lead to rebellions, chaos and a lack in an attempt to push the students further: Does the US of protection and noted that people lose trust when have an increased responsibility to take in refugees if they government leaders abuse their power, make bad decisions are from a war we are fighting? And, what message does it and are dishonest. Students then analyzed a chart send to other immigrants in the US when there is an depicting the violent turnover of emperors in Rome increase in deportations? followed by a text describing how one emperor came to power through bribery to understand why Romans lost

RADICAL TEACHER 60 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.472 trust in their government. Next, students examined a poll A related challenge emerged in the lesson about tracking the declining level of Americans’ trust in the overexpansion and military spending. In that lesson, the federal government from 1958-2017. Students asked students read an article excerpt about Rome’s attempt to smart questions related to the chart and wanted to know control its large amount of territory by increasing military what led to the specific periods of decline. Some pointed spending followed by an excerpt from a Germanic leader’s out that there were low levels of trust under Obama as well speech illustrating the level of motivation Rome’s enemies as Trump which led to a tangent about the political divide had to bring down the empire. Next, students analyzed a in the country between the two major parties. This is chart of Trump’s proposed budget showing the military where I felt like I had to be particularly cautious about constituting the majority of the discretionary spending and pushing the students to understand how Trump is uniquely a chart comparing US military spending to the next eight eroding trust. The vast majority of my students do not countries combined. These charts led to several students have the political nuance to identify where I stand expressing concern about the amount the US spends on politically simply based on my teaching. To most, they the military once they understood it in the context of the understand political views in the context of Democrat or total budget and in relation to other countries. They also Republican and Hillary/Obama or Trump. Therefore, I was examined maps identifying the location of US military careful to avoid seeming explicitly critical of Trump and bases and US Special Forces around the world. instead pushed only to the point of asking students to Unfortunately, this information did not have the intended consider why there may be a lack of trust in Trump. effect on most of the students. Several argued that having However, by exercising this caution, it allowed some bases around the world is not the same as Rome’s students to conclude that Trump was no worse in fostering overexpansion and that it helps keep Americans safe. mistrust than Obama. Some went further connecting back to military funding, claiming that the US should spend as much money as it As a result of the discussion, students were generally takes to maintain the best military in the world. I tried to in agreement that trust is important but, for many, how push students further by asking questions such as: How they applied that idea to the US today varied. Billy was might other countries perceive this large US military very direct in his suggestion to Trump about how to restore presence? And, what are some other spending priorities of trust in the government: “...tell people the truth. Without the government? honesty there is no trust. You can’t expect anyone to listen and believe you if you always lie. If you lie it will come to The result was that several students were critical of haunt you when it comes out that you lied and less people the military spending in their writing but stopped short of will trust you as a leader.” However, Paxton did not move criticizing the overall imperialist approach of the US. For from his original position and argued that the problem is example, Ashley wrote: “...try to think of how much you with others in the government besides Trump: “The other are spending on the military. Do you really need to spend problem that is arising among government positions below that much on the military or can you use that money for presidency such as in the secretary or governor positions is something else that the citizens may want or need?” It government corruption. Although it is not a huge problem seems the charts on military spending resonated more with (yet) in the U.S. many are running for governor in the fifty the students because they could see the disproportional states of America in November who I personally believe, amount of money spent compared to other aspects of the believe in lies and power for themselves.” Importantly government as well as compared to other countries. though, both responses reflect a limited vision of how the However, the map of the bases and presence of US troops government can and should operate beyond simply being had far less of an impact. Again, like the government more honest and less corrupt. mistrust lesson, this connects back to the point that the students have only lived in a time when the US has been engaged in repeated foreign conflicts. This lesson exposed the challenge of teaching young people This theme reappeared in the lesson about ongoing how to envision a government that wars and military decline. In this lesson, students began by analyzing a map and historical atlas depicting the multiple instills trust when all they have invasions faced by Rome in the 4th and 5th centuries. known over their relatively short Next, they watched part of a video describing the invasions lifetimes is a country of people of Germanic tribes and the increased use of non-Roman largely mistrustful of the federal soldiers in the Roman legions. I then shared a list of all of government. the countries in which the US is currently fighting a war, launching drone strikes and/or engaged in combat operations and had students analyze data showing the This lesson exposed the challenge of teaching young gradual decline in US military enrollment combined with people how to envision a government that instills trust the increased use of private contractors, particularly those when all they have known over their relatively short who are non-US citizens. Students were generally not lifetimes is a country of people largely mistrustful of the bothered by the extent to which the US is fighting wars, federal government. This struggle, combined with the risks although several were concerned with the decline in of teaching explicitly about politics under the perceived participation and rise in use of contractors. Overall, most constraints of the school, limited the extent to which some agreed that the US needs a strong military and it is students moved on this issue. problematic when that military is declining in any way. I

RADICAL TEACHER 61 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.472 have found that students will often criticize historic Through this discussion, several students moved on empires, like Rome, but are less inclined to apply a similar this issue. One interesting idea was offered by Krish, who critique to US imperialism. saw this issue as threatening to the stability of the country: “A solution for economic inequality is to make The challenge here, as with previous topics, is the taxes fair for everyone so the poor can support students have only known a post-9/11 world in which the themselves. The reason it would be important that the poor US is engaged in ongoing military conflicts like the can support themselves is so they can stay happy and will protracted wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Equally significant not rebel…” Most of the students may not embrace the is the fact that the students aren’t personally affected by argument that economic inequality is a moral failing but war. None of them have siblings or parents who fought in this quote illustrates the understanding that inequality Iraq or Afghanistan and these wars are taking place far creates a level of instability that could have a negative away where they don’t see the deadly effects of drone impact on the wealthy and poor alike. strikes and bombings on civilians. A related lesson focused on taxation and economic However, some students were moved to recognize this policies. Students began by discussing different types of increasing US militarism as a problem. For example, Jeff taxes and how tax revenue is used by the government. suggested the following: “A solution to invasions of other Many expressed negative views of taxes but at the same countries is not abusing our power. If we abuse our power, time didn’t quite understand how taxes were used by the it is almost definite that the country will turn on us.” This government. This initial conversation was useful because it point indicates a recognition of the negative effects of US helped students see the necessity of taxes in a society. imperial foreign policy but only insofar as it would affect They then analyzed a chart and primary and secondary Americans. What is left out here is any mention of how source texts describing the policies of currency these policies impact the people who are victims of US debasement and the abuse of taxation in Rome and how wars and attacks. the rich and poor each reacted. Next, students examined a Economic Inequality & Taxation and Economic chart illustrating the amount of tax paid by large American Policies corporations as well as a chart of Trump’s original For the lesson on economic inequality, students read a individual tax rate proposal. The individual tax rate proposal chart generated a lot of reactions among the secondary source connecting the shift in Roman values with the concentration of wealth among the senatorial class students. Almost all agreed that the poorest people should not pay more in taxes but the students were much more and then a 4th century primary source featuring commentary on the moral decline of Rome’s wealthy and divided on whether the wealthiest should pay less. A poor. Students then examined charts and graphs common suggestion was that everybody pay a lower tax illustrating the concentration of wealth and income in the rate. In an effort to push the students further, I explained US, wealth inequality disaggregated by race, and the lack how a flat tax rate affects people differently depending on their level of wealth although the complexity of this issue of social mobility in the US. I intentionally had students examine the data in that order. was a limiting factor for many students.

Many were surprised to see that the concentration of Despite not necessarily grasping all of the nuances of wealth is worse in the US today than Ancient Rome and tax policy, I was pleased to see some students tie together even more surprised to learn that there is such a wide the issue of taxes with economic inequality in their writing. For example, Sami wrote in her letter: “I think that you wealth gap between White and Black Americans. However, several students argued that this inequality is not a should see how it (taxes) affects everyone, not just the problem because people who are rich earned their money people that are wealthy.” This is another example of a while people who are poor didn’t work hard enough and student moving a little but not completely to a more critical made bad choices. I anticipated this argument as it’s one stance. I’ve heard from students throughout my career which is why I saved the chart illustrating the lack of social mobility Student Reflections for last. I was particularly careful in my explanation of the chart because I wanted students to understand that most After students wrote their letters, they reflected on people who are born poor stay poor and most who are born what they liked about and learned from the project. Two wealthy stay wealthy but I didn’t want them to think that prominent themes emerged in these responses. First, individual agency is irrelevant. The students’ reactions students identified how the past can help inform the ranged from quiet surprise to fierce skepticism. One present. For instance, John wrote: “I learned how lots of student even questioned the validity of the source which things from the fall of Rome could apply to the US” and led to an important exchange between me and the student Alexis shared: “I learned that people still make the same where I explained the value of thinking about where mistakes that they did a long time ago, and we just don’t information is coming from but not to the point of realize it”. These statements reflect the value of connecting automatically dismissing information with which one the past to the present to both better understand history disagrees. Ultimately, I think this data more than others as well as our current world (Downey & Long, 2016). This challenged the students’ understanding of American society was the first exposure for most of these young students to and their collective standing within it as part of the contemporary issues like US imperial militarism and socioeconomically-advantaged. systemic social and economic inequality. These ideas are

RADICAL TEACHER 62 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.472 now part of their collective vocabulary and burgeoning the idea of civic action. “The line” is different at each understanding of the country and world. school and for each teacher but, to me, teaching in the Age of Trumpism calls for pushing that line as far as possible The second theme that emerged was how much the under the existing constraints and helping students think students liked the authenticity of the assignment by critically about the world and their role in shaping that sending their letters to Trump. For example, Isabelle world. wrote: “I liked the fact that we got to share our opinion on what lessons we thought Donald Trump needed to learn.” Similarly, Joe wrote: “I liked that we were able to send our letter to the president after we wrote it. It encouraged me to make sure my letter was the best it could be.” And Shriya wrote: “I liked the fact that we were writing letters to the president and possibly get a real response.” The notion of contacting an elected leader to express one’s concerns was a foreign concept to most students before this project and that has now changed. This point was reinforced even more when the students received a response from the White House months later thanking and praising them for their letters.

Conclusions and Limitations

It is through critical inquiry, dialogue, writing, sharing and reflection, that students learn to think more critically and completely about their world with the goal of developing a sense of thoughtful and informed agency (hooks, 1994; Friere, 1997). In this project, seventh grade students grappled with contemporary issues, were pushed to think critically about their views, and then exercised their civic right in a democracy to speak truth to power by articulating their own ideas to the president.

Suburban public school teachers are constrained in many ways that make critical teaching difficult, especially in the current political climate. The unique challenge of engaging in critical teaching with non-marginalized students is finding the balance between pushing this pedagogy while avoiding the alienation of the students and accusations of indoctrination from parents and administrators (Swalwell, 2013). In my school in particular, I am constantly concerned about navigating the line and being mindful of every word I say to my students as well as the documents I select and questions I pose. I struggle with how far to push and how to help my students think about issues from different and more critical perspectives. In this context, inquiry-based activities that incorporate a diverse set of texts coupled with writing activities designed to help students synthesize information and develop their own ideas allowed me to increase the critical consciousness of my students while shielding myself from critique.

However, while some students embraced critical positions on these contemporary issues, others adopted only slightly more nuanced positions and still others’ views remained completely unchanged. The overall age, life experience, and collective socioeconomic status of the students certainly influenced their ability and/or willingness to think critically about systemic issues in the US and the perceived constraints on me as the teacher definitely affected how far I was willing to push the students. That said, despite those limitations, I believe this learning experience was one step toward elevating the critical consciousness of these students and introducing them to

RADICAL TEACHER 63 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.472 Notes Harris, E. (2017, February 14). The snapchat cohort gets into politics, and civics is cool. The New York Times. i. The town data is from the United States Census Bureau Retrieved from and the school data is from the National Center for https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/14/nyregion/social Education Statistics. The name of the town and school -media-schools-politics-civics.html district are pseudonyms. All student names used have also hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education as the been changed to ensure privacy. practice of freedom. New York: Routledge.

Kenworthy, J. (2017, March 13). Teachers’ new catch-22: Students want to talk politics but their parents don’t. Works Cited The Christian Science Monitor. https://www.csmonitor.com/EqualEd/2017/0313/Teac Anyon, J. (1980). Social class and the hidden curriculum of hers-new-Catch-22-Students-want-to-talk-politics-but- work. Journal of Education, 162 (1), 67-92. their-parents-don-t

Christensen, L. (2000). Reading, writing, and rising up: Le Miere, J. (2017, July 20). Donald Trump again shows Teaching about social justice and the power of the that he knows nothing about U.S. or world history. written word. Milwaukee: Rethinking Schools. Newsweek. Retrieved from http://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-history- DePaulo, B. (2017, December 8). I study liars. I’ve never napoleon-russia-639794 seen one like President Trump. The Washington Post. Retrieved from Seider, S. (2008). Bad things could happen: How fear https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/i-study- impedes social responsibility in privileged adolescents. liars-ive-never-seen-one-like-president- Journal of Adolescent Research, 23 (6), 647-666. trump/2017/12/07/4e529efe-da3f-11e7-a841- Swalwell, K. (2013). Educating activist allies: Social justice 2066faf731ef_story.html?utm_term=.b7b80a1ef757 pedagogy with the suburban and urban elite. New Downey, M. T., & Long, K. A. (2016). Teaching for York, NY: Routledge. historical literacy building knowledge in the history Wiggins, G. & McTighe, J. (1998). Understanding by classroom. New York, NY: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. design. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Freire, P. (1997). Pedagogy of the oppressed (Revised 20th Zinn, H. (1994). You can't be neutral on a moving train: A anniversary ed). New York: Continuum. (Original work personal history of our times. Boston: Beacon Press. published in 1970).

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

This journal is published by the University Library System of the University of Pittsburgh as part of its D-Scribe Digital Publishing Program, and is cosponsored by the University of Pittsburgh Press.

RADICAL TEACHER 64 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.472 ISSN: 1941-0832

Educating Educators in the Age of Trump

by Erika Kitzmiller

PHOTO COURTESY OF AUTHOR

RADICAL TEACHER 65 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.475

n January 11, 2018, the day that our president learned in this course into our own classrooms. I wanted uttered his reprehensible comments about Haiti to teach this course to give students an opportunity to O and Africa, I received an email from an explore the history of racism and white supremacy that investigative reporter affiliated with Campus Reform. was visibly on display during and after the 2016 Campus Reform is a conservative website under the presidential campaign so that they, a group comprised direction of the Leadership Institute, a non-profit founded primarily of white educators, could explore this history with in 1979 to teach “conservatives of all ages how to succeed their own students. This history is rarely, if ever covered in politics, government, and the media.”1 Campus Reform in schools, because most white educators do not know it. I has daily reports on what its authors claim to be incidents wanted to change that. of liberal bias, political indoctrination, and restrictions on free speech in American college classrooms.2 I was their new target. The reporter asked me to answer several I wanted to teach this course to questions about my upcoming course, “Education in the give students an opportunity to Age of Trump.” In his email, the reporter asked me if my explore the history of racism and course might “alienate students who may have supported white supremacy that was visibly the current U.S. President.” The reporter than asked me to on display during and after the expand on my personal views “on bias in academia” and 2016 presidential campaign so that whether I thought that “educators have a responsibility to they, a group comprised primarily exclude personal political opinions from the classroom” or of white educators, could explore whether “academia has a responsibility to oppose Trump this history with their own and the social trends that led to his victory in 2016?”3 students. As an individual who has shifted between my rural, conservative Pennsylvania hometown and my adopted, urban New York City residence, initially I wanted to The Origins of the Course: Trump 101 respond. I thought that the questions that the reporter had and Trump 2.0 posed were important ones to discuss and deliberate the various challenges teaching under our nation’s current “Education in the Age of Trump” was based on and political climate. However, about an hour after he sent me inspired by the Trump 2.0 crowd-sourced syllabus that his initial email, the reporter had already posted his article historians N.D.B. Connolly and Keisha N. Blain put together 5 without my input.4 and published on the Public Books website. These scholars called their syllabus the Trump 2.0 syllabus because it was As I read the article I was filled with several emotions. assembled in reaction to the Trump 101 syllabus that the I felt angry that I honestly thought that this investigative Chronicle of Education had published a few weeks earlier.6 reporter actually wanted to know what I thought about my Many scholars, including Connolly and Blain, felt that the course and pedagogy. Even though I have privileges that Trump 101 syllabus failed in its attempt to explain the most bourgeois white women enjoy, I felt anxious that this roots of Trumpism, the fractures in America, and the future article might jeopardize my job or cause harm to my of politics. The Trump 101 syllabus’s failures stemmed family, particularly my young children. And I was furious from the fact that none of the recommended readings on that I lived in a country that felt more like the fascist Italy the Trump 101 syllabus analyzed the contemporary racial that my grandparents and mother had left than the and gender inequalities that the Trump campaign democratic nation that I, as a first generation American, exploited. The Trump 101 syllabus did not include any felt so fortunate to be part of. At the same time, I felt works by scholars of color, LGBTQ intellectuals, or scholars cheated that I had not had the opportunity to answer the from other marginalized groups. The scholars who opposed questions that the reporter raised. the Trump 101 syllabus wrote a letter to The Chronicle of Through a careful examination of the reflections that Higher Education which asserted that “by erasing the my students wrote and the discussions that we had in history of non-white scholarship, non-white political class, this article addresses the questions that the reporter commentary on Trump, and its own history as a form has posed and how my course, “Education in the Age of meant for teaching, the ‘Trump 101’ syllabus failed to Trump,” aimed to educate educators in the Age of Trump contextualize Donald Trump’s rising political influence and so that they, too, could use our nation’s history as a way to becomes instead an extension of the racism that has come 7 name and address injustice. The course focused on the to define much about Trump’s presidential campaign.” history of racism and white supremacy to push students, As a historian of race, inequality, and education, I most of whom were white and middle class, to think followed the debate on the Trump 101 syllabus and the critically about the ways that white conservatives and subsequent publication of the Trump 2.0 syllabus with liberals have promoted policies and practices to uphold great interest. After the election, I decided to use the racial inequity and injustice throughout American history. Trump 2.0 syllabus to educate myself on the roots of The second aim of my course required us to think about Trumpism, which the syllabus defined as, “personal and how we might incorporate this history, which many of us political gain marred by intolerance, derived from wealth, (including myself) never learned in our public schools, into and rooted in the history of segregation, sexism, and our own public-school classrooms as an act of racial and exploitation.” 8 The syllabus contained many books that I social justice. In other words, learning this history was had already read, but it also contained many other books step one; step two was the implementation of what we had

RADICAL TEACHER 66 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.475 that I hoped might push my thinking about the structural school teachers. I had to replace many of the historical and historical roots of Trumpism in this country and around works with works that were better suited to the kinds of the globe. I wanted to learn, but I also wanted to support questions that my students, who were training to become the practitioners and researchers that I taught and worked secondary school teachers, might have and the kinds of with at Teachers College. situations that they might face. My students at Teachers College were not working in archives; they were working in The 2016 election ushered in a wave of anxiety and public middle and high schools. The readings had to reflect stress among teachers and students. 9 I listened and this difference. watched as conversations emerged among my personal networks of educators who were deeply concerned about Like most of the courses that I teach at Teachers the welfare of their students. I heard stories about College, “Education in the Age of Trump” was a seminar- students who were worried about their safety in this style class organized around a weekly set of thematically- democracy. Black and brown students worried that they or based readings. The class was capped at 15 students to their families might be deported. 10 Jewish and Black allow for robust and deep discussion of the readings and students were terrified when swastikas and racist epithets the application of these readings to their own teaching and appeared on their school buildings and churches. 11 research practice. I had 15 students in my course—12 Administrators, teachers, and families felt paralyzed in female and 3 male students; 12 white and 3 students of their attempts to safeguard their children from xenophobic, color. Fourteen of the 15 students in my course were misogynist, racist, and homophobic words and deeds in training to become middle and high school social studies their communities and schools. My students at Teachers teachers. Most of these students were student teaching in College, who were student teaching in New York City public high-needs, low-income public schools in New York City schools after the 2016 election, struggled with many of and taking coursework to earn a Master’s degree in social these same questions and challenges. I wanted to find a studies education. Most of the students attended selective way to support them.

In April of 2017, I asked my colleagues if it would be possible to create a course which I called “Education in the Age of Trump,” based on Connolly and Blain’s Trump 2.0 syllabus. They agreed. I submitted a draft of the syllabus to the curriculum committee, which reviews and approves new courses at Teachers College. In the summer of 2017, I learned that the committee had approved my class to run in the fall of 2017. I culled through the Trump 2.0 syllabus over the summer, again, and pulled the readings that I thought were most appropriate for the students I teach at Teachers College—students who want to become teachers, policymakers, and researchers. As I planned the course, I tried to be mindful that much of this history was new for my students, who were mostly PHOTO COURTESY OF AUTHOR upper and middle class white students. I had to balance my desires to support them four-year colleges before attending Teachers College, a as we explored this material together and push them to school of education, affiliated with Columbia University. articulate the possibilities and fears of engaging with this Each week, I sent an email to my students that provided a material in their own classrooms. While this tension detailed overview of the readings, why I selected the existed in many of the courses that I taught previously, pieces, and what I hoped to get out of them. These emails this tension seemed stronger given the heightened level of included a list of questions to generate discussions. While surveillance of teachers who engaged in pedagogy for these questions were not prescriptive, I thought it was radical social justice in this current political climate. important for students to understand why I picked the readings that I did and what I planned to discuss in class so that they can come prepared and ready to discuss these Course Overview and Structure ideas in class.

The course largely followed the themes and included At the same time, I wanted to give them voice and many of the readings in the Trump 2.0 syllabus, but it also agency in my classroom, to discuss the ideas in the deviated it from it in some ways. The Trump 2.0 syllabus readings that resonated with them as scholars and was designed for historians and social scientists, and thus, teachers. In most of my courses, I usually asked students I had to sift through the works on the syllabus to think to write 1 – 2-page reflections every other week on the about which works were and were not appropriate for readings so that I had a better sense of what they were educational practitioners. Historians are not secondary learning and thinking about. In this course, I required my

RADICAL TEACHER 67 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.475 students to participate in in-person or virtual reading group ourselves out of our comfort zones and learn from those meetings on a weekly basis. The reading groups included with different political and social worldviews. 3 – 4 individuals assigned randomly at the beginning of the This was not always easy or comfortable. For example, semester. I verified that these random assignments had one week we discussed comments from youth in one of my an even distribution of racial and gender categories. Even research sites about the resurgence of Confederate flags in though I only had three students of color and three men in their schools and communities following the 2016 election. the class, the students of color and men were distributed One of my white middle class students asked me where the evenly across these groups. The reading groups met for at school was located. I told him Pennsylvania. He, along least one hour a week outside of class. The students with several other people in the classroom, seemed recorded these reading group meetings and submitted the somewhat shocked to learn that Confederate flags existed recordings to me along with a 1 – 2-page reflection on north of the Mason-Dixon Line. Like many white students what they had discussed in their meetings. Each student in the classroom, he assumed that these objects took turns writing these reflection papers. The recordings proliferated in the South but not the North. As someone and reflections were due 24 hours before the class began who has repeatedly seen Confederate flags and symbols so that I had time to read each one before class. The throughout the North, I was somewhat taken back with his syllabus explicitly stated these procedures. ideas and encouraged him and the others like him to get I structured the course this way for several reasons. out in the world a bit more. In my course evaluations, my First, I knew that the course reading load was heavier than students remembered this moment as a contentious point most courses at the college. I wanted to give my students in the semester. It was. I was frustrated that they an incentive to do the readings in a timely manner. thought these objects only appeared in the South—that Second, I knew that the content made us all vulnerable; racism was a Southern problem that they, as Northern- talking about racism, misogyny, homophobia, and educated bourgeois white students, did not engage in. xenophobia is difficult. Most of the students in my fall They were frustrated that I called them out on what they course were upper and upper-middle class white students, did not see. who despite their progressive political views, had grown up Weeks 3 and 4 examined the widespread denial of primarily in wealthy white suburban communities with racism and white supremacy in America and the ways that limited racial, ethnic, and social economic diversity. The American capitalism sustains and promotes both of these course materials forced them to take seriously the ideals. The readings from week 3 provided us with the individuals who supported Trump and to confront their own language to describe and examine how white power has biases about these issues. The reading groups gave been and still is amplified by and built on the denial of students the space, time, and intimacy to work through racism in this country. These readings also illuminated a these biases in a more honest and deeper way compared shift from an overt to a more nuanced, covert form of to a full class discussion. The reading reflections included racism. As the scholars that we read during these weeks insights about these conversations so that I understood suggest, this new form of racism relies on coded language where they were with the material and where I could push to advance racism while it simultaneously downplays them in class. institutional and structural racism in American society.15

Discussing “Trumpism” in the Ivory The students in my class, most Tower of whom were white upper- and

The first two weeks of the course focused on the middle-class students from antecedents of Trumpism in the recent past—the ways in metropolitan areas, asserted that which the 2008 and 2012 election set the stage for the explicit discussions of race and 2016 campaign. The films and readings in these two weeks racism were largely absent from forced many of us to examine our own political blinders, to their own educations and were contend with what we did not see or know about the often overlooked in the classrooms conservative side of American politics, and how we might where they were student teaching. be able to learn more about these perspectives. 12 The conversations in the classroom centered around the rise of The students in my class, most of whom were white the Tea Party in the United States and how in many ways this movement set the stage for the 2016 campaign.13 In upper- and middle-class students from metropolitan areas, asserted that explicit discussions of race and racism were our discussions, we paid careful attention to the role that women, from Sarah Palin to stay-at-home suburban largely absent from their own educations and were often overlooked in the classrooms where they were student mothers, played in the Tea Party movement, and how in teaching. The three students of color, one of whom was an many ways, these same white women played a decisive international student, echoed this assertion. For these role in the 2016 election.14 We used the sources in these students, it was at home, not at school where incidents of two weeks to interrogate how our own positions and biases due to our racial, social, and geographical positions often racism were discussed. In one of the reading responses, students noted that they had been raised in a “colorblind promoted a narrow view of the political and social contours of this country and why we needed to do more to push society” where the promise of the first black president seemed to overshadow conversations about structural

RADICAL TEACHER 68 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.475 racism in the nation. While they did not support this classrooms to teach about racism, inequality, and poverty colorblind orientation, this group asserted that people often despite the opposition we might face. downplay the effects of structural and institutional racism Week 4, then, connected the language of white power because they firmly believe in the idea that everyone in and colorblind racism to capitalism and racialized political America can “pull themselves up by their bootstraps.” As discourse.17 These readings forced us to acknowledge and one student suggested, white people rarely talk about reckon with the ways that slavery and Black labor were racism because denying its existence upholds white tied to the accumulation of white capital in the Early privilege, power, and supremacy. Another group noted that Republic. In our discussions, we noted how this connection in the rare cases where students are exposed to between blackness and white capital has been promoted conversations about race, these conversations are often and sustained today through mass incarceration and the presented in discrete and sanitized formats, such as the school to prison pipeline. We also examined how the 2016 decision by Rosa Parks to stay seated in the white section campaign rhetoric exemplified Lopez’s notion of dogwhistle of the bus or Martin Luther King, Jr.’s I Have a Dream politics. According to Lopez, dogwhistle politics refers to speech. Students asserted that they never learned the long individuals who use racially coded language that arc of the civil rights movement or the more radical ideas simultaneously promotes and denies racist views. 18 Even that civil rights leaders held. though we recognized the long history of dogwhistle politics in American history, in our discussions, we also highlighted the ways that social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, make the proliferation of dogwhistle politics more powerful, prevalent, and public than in the past. For example, when Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, the president tweeted that Puerto Ricans “want everything done for them.” 19 Even though Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens and are entitled federal support, this message promotes the racist idea that Latinx individuals, whether in the U.S. or abroad, are dependent on U.S. support because they lack the capacity to help themselves. Students argued that they could use their classrooms to combat these messages in society by both

PHOTO COURTESY OF AUTHOR pointing out the ways that the founding of this country solidified the The students in my class articulated their commitment connection between blackness and capitalism and that the to discuss race and racism in their own classrooms, but expansion of our empire to places like Puerto Rico they also recognized that schools silence and promote perpetuated these ideals. conversations about racial injustice and inequity in America. 16 Even though they did not necessarily support The next few weeks built on these ideas through the silence, they understood that they might be teaching in history of xenophobia and security in the United States. In communities where anti-racist, anti-bias education might these weeks, we examined the historical roots of be an affront to those who believe that they have the most Islamophobia around the globe and its effects on children 20 to lose from these conversations: privileged white youth in the United States. We also analyzed the historical roots and their families. In our classroom, we tried to tease out of border control and xenophobia against Latinx 21 how they might be able to integrate conversations about individuals. Even though no one resisted these ideas, the race and racism into their classrooms and handle the fact that many of these challenges can be traced to the th th backlash that they might receive from white youth, 19 and early 20 centuries shocked many of my students. families, and perhaps, even other educators. One of the Most of my students had never heard about the Bracero students of color suggested that teachers leverage the Program or Operation Wetback, and now that they had language of intersectionality to bring more nuance to the exposure to these events, they actively sought ways to conversations about race in our classrooms. Another incorporate these topics into their own classrooms. These student, who grew up in a predominately white working- readings also reinforced and advanced the concerns that class town 60 miles north of New York City, urged us to many of them already had about police surveillance and consider the idea of stressing the commonalities between ICE raids in black and brown communities. The texts poor whites and poor people of color. Both of these pushed us to consider how the United States has been students relied on their own experiences to push us to engaged in a process of “othering” as a way to promote think more deeply about what we could do in our own Islamophobia and xenophobia, and in turn, white power and supremacy. These readings and our class discussions

RADICAL TEACHER 69 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.475 pushed us to identify times in American history when this they were student teaching. Educators, they asserted, had process of othering occurred, such as Japanese internment a responsibility to name and address toxic masculinity in during World War II, the Red and Lavender Scare in the their classrooms and schools as way of promoting equity, 1950s, and the federal surveillance of black activists during kindness, and humanity in their classrooms and schools. the 1960s. Rather than argue that these acts only occurred While some of my students noted that they are still under the current administration, these readings illustrate struggling with how to name and address toxic masculinity the historical and structural roots of anti-immigrant in their classrooms, one of the reading groups created a sentiment, and in doing so, allowed us to consider the long curriculum called, Chuck the Patriarchy, which centered on history of anti-immigrant policies and practices in our ways to deal with toxic masculinity in their classrooms. nation’s history. Moreover, these readings helped us First, the students noted that it is important to recognize understand that the Democratic and Republican parties and how masculinity in its various forms affects both content leadership have been implicated in upholding and and classroom culture. My students noted that most of sustaining Islamophobia and xenophobia for decades, if their curriculum and textbooks prioritize the history of not, centuries. wars, presidents, and generally aggressive white men. In the next few weeks, we examined the intersections These stories and histories, as they said, are “rooted in the of gender, sexuality, and power as well as the ways that notion of assumed importance, an arrogant attitude that the mass incarceration state and U.S. we see as akin to masculine notions of housing policies affect our schools and assumed dominance.” They wanted to youth. Dorothy Roberts’ Killing the destabilize this. In this piece, they Black Body allowed us to analyze how argued, that in order to deconstruct policies to alleviate poverty are toxic masculinity, they, as teachers, generally written in way that targets must assess the content that they the person in poverty rather than choose to highlight (uplifting previously poverty itself. In our classroom ignored voices), how they frame discussions, we related this idea to the traditional content, and draw important widely held belief in meritocracy in connections to that content and America, a belief that does not account student’s current environment. This, for differences based on race, gender, they noted, inevitably means facing or class. Many people believe that complex social studies issues that can be everyone in America is given an equal difficult to unpack for secondary opportunity, which as my students students in a social studies classroom, noted in turn, promotes the idea that such as intersectional representation, the poor are poor because they are lazy coded language, and unpacking or incompetent. The students in my sentiment and facts. course, once again, viewed these widely They noted that addressing and held beliefs as ones both Democrats ending toxic masculinity requires that and Republicans uphold and searched teachers name, and in many cases for ways to address this idealized myth change, the various power hierarchies that exist in and out in their classrooms. The book helped them understand the of the class. Even though they had diverse student gendered and racialized language around black teaching experiences and opportunities, they noted that motherhood. Roberts’s insights helped us consider, as teachers routinely perpetuate toxic masculinity by educational researchers and young teachers, how we might prioritizing facts over sentiment or “hard evidence” over become more aware of own our racialized and gendered “soft sentiment.” This not only promotes a masculine way biases in our interactions and conversations with low- of thinking, but as they noted, it also limits how a student income Black mothers and their children in parent teacher interprets information. They argued that “soft sentiment” conferences and in the front offices of our schools. These and expressing emotionality are commonly deemed more insights surfaced again when we discussed mass feminine practices but being able to incorporate feelings incarceration and housing evictions later in the course.22 and values into discussions of current events and other In addition to examining the ways that inequality social studies topics is important for holistic understanding. affects women and children, we also considered how toxic They felt that the course, Education in the Age of Trump, masculinity has shaped our nation’s history and our public forced them to reexamine “our own values and schools and how individuals have sustained and challenged understanding of history.” They continued: this ideal in their communities today. 23 Students—both The facts we have learned about nondominant men and women—recalled their own experiences with toxic histories have contributed to how we feel about our masculinity in their own schools. Most of my students history and current state. Being able to reflect on this asserted that toxic masculinity was tolerated, sometimes learning has been an inherent part of our learning in even promoted, in the schools that they attended. Having this class, and something we find important in the language to describe what they had experienced and dismantling dominating hierarchies that currently witnessed in their own learning gave them the opportunity thrive in schools, content and culture. to voice their concerns about toxic masculinity in the schools that they attended as well as the schools where

RADICAL TEACHER 70 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.475 In order to begin dismantling the norms of toxic the opportunity to deliberate and dialogue about their own masculinity that have run especially rampant in the post- beliefs so that they could more effectively advocate for Trump era, my students believed that they had an social justice and change in their schools and lives. obligation to start this process of naming and ending toxic masculinity in their classrooms through their curriculum and pedagogy. Reflecting and Renaming the Course

As someone who grew up in a rural part of America, it In our last class, I asked my students to reflect on the was very important to me to include a discussion of rural course title, to consider if the course title actually described issues on the syllabus. We used Amy Goldstein’s Janesville what we accomplished over the semester. I told them that to frame our discussion of rural America around the ideas I had my own concerns that the course title centered the of gender, labor, and toxic masculinity that we had just challenges in our schools on one person and that this title examined in urban spaces. For many of my students, this promoted the idea that if this person was not our was the first time that they had ever considered the plight president, then these challenges might disappear. As a of rural or at least non-urban America in their coursework. historian of race and inequality, I knew that was not true. As they said, understanding the challenges in a place like Many of my students argued that they had signed up for Janesville, Wisconsin or Buckhannon, West Virginia, helped the course because of the title, but that in fact, what we them develop empathy and compassion for individuals who had discussed over the course of the semester centered might have different political and cultural outlooks in this around the ideas of racialized discourse, toxic masculinity, nation.24 They did not understand the economic hardship and American capitalism. In our discussion, they reasoned and deep poverty in these places because they had never that the course was less about Trump and more about the studied them. role that white supremacy and power has played and continues to play in American history and society. The In her final reflection paper, a Latino woman who grew course, they argued, pushed them to be more aware of up in a small city in Pennsylvania noted that this course their own biases and to be more cognizant of their ability was the first time she had ever discussed rural America in to use American history to address injustice in their the classroom. Before this course, she said that she had classrooms and schools. It also helped us understand and always associated the challenges of poverty, racism, and acknowledge our own political blinders and to think about inequality with urban America. Reading Janesville and ideas and perspectives from multiple vantage points. discussing the rise in poverty, people of color, and inequality in the rural America forced her to reckon with One student noted that she thought that the course the ways that these challenges affect urban and rural title might be off-putting to students who supported the Americans. The book and our discussion of it, she argued, president and his political ideas—that often times the gave her the chance “to expand not only my knowledge course focused on what many of them already believed to but also my way of thinking.” This book and our be true. She urged me to change the course name to conversations of progressive politics in rural West Virginia attract conservative students to the course so that she and challenged her “to think about the differences in place, others could learn from their perspectives and ideas. In perspective and background that educators and others response to her ideas, I said that I am fine with individuals working in schools bring to the table, and how important it having different perspectives politically, that I had actually is to ensure we always make space for everyone’s truths, been raised in a household with two parents who had not just our own.” In other words, the course gave her different political views from me. The problem is that I am content knowledge that she did not have, but perhaps not fine with individuals who use politics to justify more importantly, it pushed her to be open to differences Trumpism. In this class and my other classes, I do not that, as she suggested, she had not encountered or tolerate any form of racism, misogyny, xenophobia, and experienced in her own life. homophobia in my classrooms. I explicitly state these standards on all of my syllabi. In the remaining weeks in the course, we discussed LGBTQ rights and religion in schools. 25 I paired these I struggled with this feedback, but ultimately decided themes together because often times the religious right to change the course title from Education in the Age of uses sexuality to advance their agenda to push religious Trump to Education in a Polarized and Unequal Society. On ideas and theories into our public schools. In these weeks, the one hand, I truly believed that the 2016 election had we examined the ways in which homophobic incidents have unleashed something in our schools that I had never been on the rise under the Trump administration and how witnessed, at least on this scale, in my lifetime. I told my these hateful acts have spilled into our schools. My students that we needed to acknowledge that education in students shared emotional stories of their own experiences the age of Trump was markedly different than education in as queer youth and the effects that the election has had on the age of Obama, Bush, or Clinton, the presidents that queer youth today. We then moved to evangelical had governed this nation during their lifetime. At the same Christianity, which once again, many of my students said time, it was not that different. If the reporter who emailed that they had never studied in school before. Taking me about my course had read my syllabus or come to my seriously the viewpoints of evangelical Christians helped us class, he might have realized that we discussed the ways articulate our own ideas in a deeper way. As one of my that Trumpism has existed since the founding of this students said, I have to think about what others think so country. I chose to teach this course, not to alienate or that I can understand and express my ideas in relationship indoctrinate my students as the reporter suggested, but to what I might disagree with. This course gave students rather to equip them with the knowledge to teach about

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RADICAL TEACHER 73 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.475 childhood/reports/2017/07/31/436377/trumps- 2015); See also, James Baldwin, “A Letter to My Nephew,” immigration-policies-harming-american-children/. Progressive.org, January 1, 1962, http://progressive.org/%3Fq%3Dnews/2014/12/5047/lette 11 “Opinion, A High School Defaced With ‘Trump’ and r-my-nephew/. Swastikas,” The New York Times, sec. Opinion, accessed February 1, 2018, 19 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/25/opinion/a-high- https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/914089888596 school-defaced-with-trump-and-swastikas.html; “Teens 754434?lang=en, September 30, 2017. Who Graffitied Historic Black School with Swastikas 20 Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem?: Sentenced To Visit Holocaust Museum," HuffPost, accessed Being Young and Arab in America (New York, NY: Penguin February 1, 2018, Books, 2009); Amanda Holpuch, Ed Pilkington, and Jared https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/teens-graffitied- Goyette, “Muslims in Trump’s America: Realities of historic-black-sentence-holocaust- Islamophobic Presidency Begin to Sink in,” the Guardian, museum_us_589356d8e4b0bf5206e686d3. November 17, 2016, http://www.theguardian.com/us- 12 Sean Wilentz, The Age of Reagan: A History, 1974-2008, news/2016/nov/17/muslim-americans-donald-trump-hate- Reprint edition (New York, NY: Harper Perennial, 2009). crimes-surveillance; “American Muslims Respond To Islamophobia By Running For Office,” NPR.org, accessed 13 Christopher S. Parker and Matt A. Barreto, Change They February 1, 2018, Can’t Believe In: The Tea Party and Reactionary Politics in https://www.npr.org/2017/02/23/516787802/in-response- America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013); to-rising-violence-muslims-run-for-office. “Divided States of America,” FRONTLINE, accessed February 1, 2018, 21 Kelly Lytle Hernandez, Migra!: A History of the U.S. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/divided-states-of- Border Patrol (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, america/. 2010); Daniel Denvir, “Obama Created a Deportation Machine. Soon It Will Be Trump’s,” The Guardian, 14 Melissa Deckman, Tea Party Women: Mama Grizzlies, November 21, 2016; Greg Grandin, “,” The Nation, June 9, Grassroots Leaders, and the Changing Face of the 2016. American Right (New York: New York University Press, 2016). 22 Danielle Allen, Cuz or the Life and Times of Michael A. (New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2017); 15 Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, White Supremacy and Racism in Elizabeth Hinton, From the War on Poverty to the War on the Post-Civil Rights Era (Boulder, Colo: Lynne Rienner Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America Pub, 2001); Nolan León Cabrera, “Exposing Whiteness in (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2015); Matthew Higher Education: White Male College Students Minimizing Desmond, Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, Racism, Claiming Victimization, and Recreating White (New York: Crown, 2016). Supremacy,” Race, Ethnicity and Education 17, no. 1 (2014): 30–55; “Park Avenue: Money, Power & the 23 Michael Kimmel, Angry White Men: American Masculinity American Dream,” accessed February 1, 2018, and the End of an Era (New York: Nation Books, 2013); http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/films/park-avenue/; Peter Binzen, Whitetown, U.S.A. (New York: Vintage Race: the Power of An Illusion, directed by Christine Books, 1971); Elizabeth Flock, “A women's movement Herbes-Sommers, Tracy Heather Strain, and Llewellyn M. grows in 'the most Trumpian place in America'” Smith (California Newsreel, 2003), http://www.pbs.org/newshour/features/trump-west- https://vimeo.com/133506632. virginia/; Frontline, Betting on Trump: Coal, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/betting-on- 16 Michelle Fine and Lois Weis, Silenced Voices and trump-coal/ Extraordinary Conversations: Re-Imagining Schools (New York: Teachers College Press, 2003). Frontline, Betting on Trump: Jobs, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/betting-on- 17 Manning Marable, How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black trump-jobs/; Michael Ian Black, “The Boys Are Not All America: Problems in Race, Political Economy, and Society, Right,” New York Times, February 21, 2018, Reprint edition (Chicago, Illinois: Haymarket Books, 2015); https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/21/opinion/boys- Ian Haney López, Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial violence-shootings-guns.html. Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class, Reprint edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 24 Amy Goldstein, Janesville: An American Story, Reprint 2015); James Baldwin, “A Letter to My Nephew,” edition (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2018); Elizabeth Progressive.org, January 1, 1962, Flock, “A Women’s Movement Grows in ‘the Most Trumpian http://progressive.org/%3Fq%3Dnews/2014/12/5047/lette Place in America,’” PBS Newshour. r-my-nephew/; Ben Smith and Byron Tau, “Birtherism: 25 Margot Canaday, “Building a Straight State: Sexuality Where it All Began,” Politico, April 22, 2011. and Social Citizenship under the 1944 G.I. Bill,” The 18 Ian Haney López, Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Journal of American History 90, no. 3 (December 2003): Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle 935–57; Sean Cahill, Sophia Geffen, and Tim Wang, “One Class, Reprint edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, Year in, Trump Administration Amasses Striking Anti-LGBT

RADICAL TEACHER 74 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.475

Record” (Boston: The Fenway Institute, 2018), http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/01/betsy- http://fenwayhealth.org/wp-content/uploads/The-Fenway- devos-christian-schools-vouchers-charter-education- Institute-Trump-Pence-Administration-One-Year- secretary/; Valerie Strauss, “The Big Problem with What Report.pdf; Nico Lang, “Donald Trump’s Presidency Is a Trump Just Said about Religion in Schools,” Washington Grave Threat to LGBT Students,” Salon, January 19, 2017, Post, June 12, 2017, http://www.salon.com/2017/01/19/donald-trumps- https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer- presidency-is-a-grave-threat-to- lgbt-students-and-betsy- sheet/wp/2017/06/12/the-big-problem-with-what-trump- devos-is-just-the-tip-of-the-iceberg/; Randall Balmer, Thy just-said-about-religion-in- Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right Distorts Faith and schools/?utm_term=.389e3ea2d491; Laurie Goodstein, Threatens America, Reprint edition (New York: Basic “Religious Liberals Sat Out of Politics for 40 Years. Now Books, 2007); Matthew Sitman, “Against Moral Austerity: They Want in the Game,” New York Times, June 10, 2017, How Religion Can Revitalize the Left,” Dissent 64, no. 3 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/10/us/politics/politics- (Summer 2017): 108–14; Kristina Rizga, “Betsy DeVos religion-liberal-william-barber.html?smprod=nytcore- Wants to Use America’s Schools to Build “God’s Kingdom,” iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share. Mother Jones, April 2017,

RADICAL TEACHER 75 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.475

Education in the Age of Trump Syllabus

by Erika Kitzmiller

Week 1: Course Introduction

PBS Frontline: Divided States of America (Part 1 in class, watch Part 2 this week) http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/divided-states-of-america/

Week 2: Antecedents

Sean Wilentz, The Age of Reagan: A History, 1974 – 2008 (New York: HarperCollins, 2008), Chapter 5, The New Morning

Christopher S. Parker and Matt A. Barreto, Change They Can’t Believe In: The Tea Party and Reactionary

Politics in America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013), Introduction and Chapter 1

Melissa Deckman, Tea Party Women: Mama Grizzlies, Grassroots Leaders, and the Changing Face of the American Right (New York: New York University Press, 2016), Introduction

Week 3: White Power and Plausible Deniability

Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, White Supremacy and Racism in the Post-Civil Rights Era (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2001), Chapter 4, “The New Racism: The Post-Civil Rights Racial Structure in the United States,” Chapter 5, “Color-Blind Racism: Toward an Analysis of White Racial Ideology.”

Nolan Leon Cabrera, “Exposing whiteness in higher education: white male college students minimizing racism, claiming victimization, and recreating white supremacy,” Race, Ethnicity, and Education, 17:1, September 2012.

Park Avenue: Money, Power, and the American Dream: http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/films/park-avenue/

Week 4: The Intersections of Capitalism and Racism

Manning Marable, How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America: Problems in Race, Political Economy, and Society (Boston: South End Press, 1983), Introduction.

Ian Haney Lopez, Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), Introduction.

Thomas Shapiro, Toxic Inequality (New York: Basic Books, 2016), Chapters 1 and 5.

Ben Smith and Byron Tau, “Birtherism: Where it All Began,” Politico, April 22, 2011.

James Baldwin, “My Dungeon Shook: Letter to My Nephew on the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Emancipation,” in The Fire Next Time (Dial Press, 1963).

Week 5: Immigration Policies and Islamophobia

Gallup, Islamophobia: Understanding Anti-Muslim Sentiment in the West

RADICAL TEACHER 76 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.475 Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2012, Chapter 8.

Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does it Feel to Be a Problem? Being Young and Arab in America. New York: Penguin, 2009, Rami.

Amanda Holpuch, Ed Pilkington, and Jared Goyette, “Muslims in Trump’s America: Realities of Islamophobic Presidency Begin to Sink in,” The Guardian, November 17, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/us- news/2016/nov/17/muslim-americans-donald-trump-hate-crimes-surveillance

Kat Chow, “American Muslims Respond to Islamophobia By Running For Office,” NPR, February 23, 2017, http://www.npr.org/2017/02/23/516787802/in-response-to-rising-violence-muslims-run-for-office

Week 6: Illusions of National Security and On Mexicans and Mexican Americans

Kelly Lytle Hernández, Migra!: A History of the US Border Patrol. Berkley: University of California

Press, 2010., selections

Daniel Denvir, “Obama Created a Deportation Machine. Soon It Will Be Trump’s,” The Guardian,

November 21, 2016.

Greg Grandin, “Why Trump Now? It’s the Empire, Stupid,” The Nation, June 9, 2016.

Wisconsin Students Rally to Support Sanctuary Schools, The Circus,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMBLkNZ62Uw

Week 7: Misogyny, Sexism, and Shaming the Female Body

Dorothy Roberts, Killing the Black Body (New York: Vintage, 1998), Chapters 4 and 5

Nina Martin and Renee Montagne, “Nothing Protects Black Women from Dying in Pregnancy and

Childbirth,” https://www.propublica.org/article/nothing-protects-black-women-from- dying-in-pregnancy-and- childbirth

Maya Salam, “For Serena Williams, Childbirth was a Harrowing Ordeal. She is Not Alone,”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/11/sports/tennis/serena-williams-baby-vogue.html

Week 8: Racial Double Standards under Mass Incarceration

Danielle Allen, Cuz: The Life and Times of Michael A. (New York: Liveright Publishing, 2017).

Fresh Air Interview with Danielle Allen, https://www.npr.org/2017/09/20/552318248/cuz-examines-the-tragic-life-and- death-of-a-young-black-man-in-la

OR

Elizabeth Kai Hinton, From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2016).

Matt Ford, “Donald Trump’s Racially Charged Advocacy of the Death Penalty,” The Atlantic Monthly, December 18, 2015. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/12/donald-trump-death-penalty/420069/

RADICAL TEACHER 77 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.475

Week 9: Violence, Authoritarianism, and Masculinity

Peter Binzen, Whitetown, Chapter 2, “The Schools of Whitetown”

Michael Kimmel, Angry White Men: American Masculinity in the End of an Era (New York: Nation,

2015), Introduction

Elizabeth Flock, “A women's movement grows in 'the most Trumpian place in America'” http://www.pbs.org/newshour/features/trump-west-virginia/

Frontline, Betting on Trump: Coal, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/betting-on-trump-coal/

Frontline, Betting on Trump: Jobs, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/betting-on-trump-jobs/

Michael Ian Black, “The Boys Are Not All Right,” New York Times, February 21, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/21/opinion/boys-violence-shootings-guns.html

Week 10: Labor and Whiteness in America’s Heartland

Amy Goldstein, Janesville: An American Story (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2017).

Week 11: Racism and Real Estate

Matthew Desmond, Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City (New York: Crown, 2016)

Michael Fletcher, “A Shattered Foundation,” Washington Post, January 24, 2015, http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2015/01/24/the-american-dream-shatters-in-prince-georges- county/?utm_term=.c57e4681f10d

Matthew Desmond, “How Homeownership Became the Engine of American Inequality,” The New York Times, May 9, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/09/magazine/how-homeownership-became-the-engine-of-american- inequality.html

Week 12: Sexuality and LGBTQ Rights

Margot Canaday, “Building a Straight State: Sexuality and Social Citizenship under the 1944 G.I. Bill,” The Journal of American History, vol. 90, no. 3 (Dec. 2003), 935 -957.

Sean Cahill, Sophia Geffen, and Tim Wang, “One year in, Trump Administration amasses striking anti-LGBT record,” The Fenway Institute, http://fenwayhealth.org/wp-content/uploads/The-Fenway-Institute-Trump-Pence-Administration- One-Year-Report.pdf

Nico Lang, “Donald Trump’s Presidency is a Grave Threat to LGBT Students,” Salon, January 19, 2017, http://www.salon.com/2017/01/19/donald-trumps-presidency-is-a-grave-threat-to-lgbt-students-and-betsy-devos- is-just-the-tip-of-the-iceberg/

Week 13: God, Family, Country

Randall Balmer, Thy Kingdom Come: An Evangelical’s Lament (New York: Basic Books, 2006), Chapter 1

Matthew Sitman, “Against Moral Austerity: How Religion Can Revitalize the Left,” Dissent, Sum2017.

RADICAL TEACHER 78 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.475 Kristina Rizga, “Betsy DeVos Wants to Use America’s Schools to Build “God’s Kingdom,” Mother Jones, March/April 2017, http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/01/betsy-devos-christian-schools-vouchers-charter-education- secretary/

Valerie Strauss, “The big problem with what Trump just said about religion in schools,” Washington Post, June 12, 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2017/06/12/the-big-problem-with-what-trump- just-said-about-religion-in-schools/?utm_term=.389e3ea2d491

Laurie Goodstein, “Religious Liberals Sat Out of Politics for 40 Years. Now They Want in the Game,” New York Times, June 10, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/10/us/politics/politics-religion-liberal-william- barber.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share

Week 14: History in Trump’s America: What Can Educators Do

Kat Lonsdorf, “Teaching in the Age of Trump”, http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/11/11/501604685/teaching-after- trump

Teaching the 2016 Election, https://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/splc_the_trump_effect.pdf

Naomi Klein, “Daring to Dream in the Age of Trump,” The Nation, June 13, 2017, https://www.thenation.com/article/daring-to-dream-in-the-age-of-trump/

Naomi Klein, Full Interview, Democracy Now, https://www.democracynow.org/2017/6/13/full_interview_naomi_klein_on_no

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

This journal is published by the University Library System of the University of Pittsburgh as part of its D-Scribe Digital Publishing Program, and is cosponsored by the University of Pittsburgh Press.

RADICAL TEACHER 79 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.475 ISSN: 1941-0832

Poem denvergoddamn

by Chris Steele

CHRIS STEELE, (PHOTO: SEAN GRUNO)

RADICAL TEACHER 80 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.527

denvergoddamn

They made a gun and named it civilization They told me I had a learning disorder and needed more patience When i was young they said columbus was a hero for us They never told me he was a genocidal maniac who killed and enslaved the Indigenous I learned about not chewing gum and the “maybe true” greenhouse effect Now I’m older and there’s not much time left

Upon reflecting on how i woke up from my brainwashed lessons It was hip hop who woke me and made me ask questions When I first heard NWA my brother said never repeat what they say So I memorized every word and repeat them to this day No matter how good a pamphlet is it’s read once and thrown away, but a song Is memorized by the heart, that was said by Joe Hill Rap shook me Kweli said why did 50 shots hit Sean Bell?

Rap taught me about MOVE being bombed by the Philly police in 85 The year I was born, white supremacy was erased, my history was a lie A tree never grown, 41 shots hit Amadou Diallo when he was reaching for his wallet They say he sold loosies, he stole cigarillos, but murder is what we call it They make lies seem truthful and murder seem respectable as they collect more metals While the memorials on street corners slowly decay as tears fall like marigold petals

Ras Kass told me about the nature of the threat I started to reflect on privilege, capitalism, slavery, and debt Dead Prez taught me about Nat Turner, my textbooks silent... propaganda is clever I asked my teacher, he yelled wait in my ear until it fermented to never In high school 9/11 happened Gangstarr was my GURU, Marvin said war is not the answer On our lunch break they would try to recruit us their lies were foolish They said you got to fight for freedom, a fatigue wearing Judas

Now there’s no yellow ribbon on the oak tree, you see Cause We chopped it down to make more recruitment papers for the next war to be Looking at yearbook photos, we were on a basketball team, now some are veterans We were born good, Vonnegut called this original virtue Our rage was learned, now truth has less limbs

All this from the muddy heart of denver, swimming in a tar pit of foreclosed bricks Illegal to sleep outside, the shelters are full, pushing the rock of Sisyphus The ghost of Nina, denver god damn Lynchings in Limon, did my silence play a hand? You could turn a tree into a club or a prison or you leave it be I say let it grow and plant seeds Because that’s what hip hop was for me

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

This journal is published by the University Library System of the University of Pittsburgh as part of its D-Scribe Digital Publishing Program, and is cosponsored by the University of Pittsburgh Press.

RADICAL TEACHER 81 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.527 ISSN: 1941-0832

Teaching ‘Trump Feminists’

by Tristan Josephson

PHOTO BY TIM GOUW

RADICAL TEACHER 82 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.473

his article takes up the question of how to develop Some larger institutional context will be helpful. I am a effective strategies for engaging conservative faculty member in the Department of Women’s Studies at T students who feel under attack in feminist Sacramento State University, which is part of the 23- classrooms. Dealing with resistant and conservative campus California State University system, the largest (and students in women and gender studies is not a new supposedly the most affordable) public four-year university phenomenon, especially in my position teaching at a system in the United States. The University Administration diverse regional comprehensive public university in likes to call Sacramento State “California’s Capital northern California. While the university administration is University.” The student population is about 30,000; the supportive of students of color and undocumented majority of students come from Sacramento and the students, it is also heavily invested in discourses of civility surrounding regions, and almost half of all graduates stay and ‘free speech.’ The recent election cycle and the current in the area after graduation. My department is located in Trump presidency have empowered the more conservative the College of Social Sciences and Interdisciplinary Studies students in my classes to mobilize this language to claim and is one of the smallest of the 10 departments in the that they feel ‘unsafe’ in class and on campus. College. At the moment we have 3.5 full-time tenure-track and tenured faculty (one of our faculty has a joint The appropriation of feminist and queer discourses of appointment in Women’s Studies and Ethnic Studies), two ‘safe space’ by students on the right to position themselves long term lecturers who teach three courses a year each, as being under attack and vulnerable presents a series of one administrative staff person who works 75%, and about pedagogical challenges. As a professor, I directly confront 70 majors. The Women’s Studies program has been in explicitly racist, misogynist, homophobic, and transphobic existence since the early 1970s in a variety of forms. It has comments in class and my course readings rigorously been a department for the last 9 years or so, and like challenge these forms of bias. Personally and politically I many Women’s Studies departments and programs in the am committed to making sure that my students who are United States, we are constantly struggling for funds, actually being targeted by current political discourses and resources, and legitimacy from the College and the state policies – such as undocumented students, students University. of color, queer and trans students – are receiving the support that they need. However, I recognize that the Every semester for the past three years I have been mobilization of rhetorics of safety by conservative students teaching a Women’s Studies course that introduces is most likely motivated by feelings of unsafety. Students students to the history and breadth of contemporary may very well feel unsafe, even if those feelings may not feminist social movements, which I focus on feminist be grounded in material experiences or circumstances of struggles that center anti-racist, queer, and economic unsafety and threat; that is, the feelings themselves are justice analytical frameworks. As an upper-division general real and deserve attention. I am invested in challenging all education course, listed in the university course catalog of my students and trying to make my classrooms into under the rather generic title of “Introduction to Women’s spaces of transformational learning. This article explores Movements,” this class attracts students with a range of the question of dissent in feminist classrooms through the political perspectives from a variety of academic majors. problem of conservative students who deploy rhetorics of Out of a class of 40-45 students, there are usually only 7- safety in ways that flatten out power relations and 10 Women’s Studies majors and minors. While the majority systemic oppression. I do this by thinking through a couple of the students tend to enter the class with relatively of moments in which I have encountered the ideological liberal analyses of gender and racial oppression, a formation of ‘Trump feminists’ in the classroom. What are significant minority of students have more conservative possible pedagogical strategies that actively engage views. In my first few years teaching at Sacramento State, conservative students rather than silencing and alienating I was often surprised by some of the students’ them? How can students’ declarations of feelings of conservative perspectives on issues like reproductive unsafety serve as productive moments for examining justice, the inclusion of trans women in feminist definitions of safety and vulnerability and how these ideas movements and feminist spaces, and sex work, because I and affects circulate? I am interested in thinking about how had assumed that students would be more progressive instructors can problematize the notion of ‘safety’ for coming from the Sacramento area. The University conservative students in order to help them – and all Administration, in contrast, has been explicit in its students – develop more critical understandings of resistance to the actions taken by the Trump structural violence and precarity, and of what constitutes Administration towards DACA recipients and trans ‘unsafe’ environments. students. The University President is extremely vocal about the need to protect undocumented students, and the University funds a Dreamer Resource Center and has been This article explores the providing weekly free legal support and advice from local question of dissent in feminist immigration attorneys to undocumented students and their classrooms through the problem of families. It is this institutional context in which I have conservative students who deploy encountered conservative students mobilizing feminist rhetorics of safety in ways that discourses of safety and vulnerability to position flatten out power relations and themselves as under attack in the classroom. systemic oppression.

RADICAL TEACHER 83 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.473 Example one: unsafe on campus Trump’s election. This makes sense given the racial and class demographics of the student body. More than two When I was teaching this course on feminist social thirds of the student population at Sacramento State are movements in fall 2016 to a group of about 40 students, I students of color – 29% Latino, 20% Asian American, 12% could feel some anxieties from students in this class and in multiracial, 6% African American, 1% Pacific Islander, my other classes leading up to the presidential election. At 0.3% American Indian – and the University identifies half the same time, this particular group of students had been the students as low income and a little more than half as reticent to discuss political events during the first two first generation students. The demographics of the faculty months of class, despite the course’s focus on at Sacramento State are quite different: two thirds of the contemporary feminist issues, and some of them had faculty is white (California State University, Sacramento). expressed rather conservative social and cultural While this notecard exercise only generated a perspectives during our class discussions. So while I conversation that lasted about 15 minutes, I felt that it wanted to open up some classroom space for students to provided students with an opportunity to write through discuss their reactions to the election, I was wary about some of their reactions and also to read and hear about a predetermining the shape of the discussion in ways that few other students’ reactions. However, one student did might have a silencing effect on some students. take the opportunity in this discussion to talk (non- In the past I have been much less invested in bringing anonymously) about her own reactions. This white student my more conservative students along, even as I know that proclaimed rather dramatically, near the end of the ethically and pedagogically, I am responsible for all conversation, that she felt unsafe on campus given her students’ experiences in the classroom. During the two own political views in this post-election moment. years in which I worked as a part-time lecturer at multiple Intentionally vague, this student did not mention any campuses before getting my current position, I was much political affiliation or whom she had voted for, but said that less concerned if the more radical material in my classes she felt like a minority on campus due to her political and alienated some students. However, now as a tenure-track social views and that she perceived most other students to professor who is actively involved in developing and be angry about the election. She tearfully described the expanding my small department – and as a worker who is ways she felt vulnerable and unsafe walking around on now paid adequately for my labor and time – I have been campus and how she was worried that someone was going thinking more seriously about ways to reach out to to take a baseball bat to her car. Without having to conservative students. To be clear, this has not taken the explicitly identify as a Trump voter or as a Republican, this form of compromising on the content or politics of the student claimed a minoritarian and persecuted position readings I assign or other course material. But it has based on her alignment with the political party who meant thinking differently about how to frame the controlled the election. material, how to structure in-class discussions, and how to respond to students. This thinking differently is not motivated solely by my desire to improve my pedagogical This student had leapt from a strategies, but also by an institutional imperative. About place of (political) identity to a one third of our Women’s Studies courses fulfill one or position of oppression, and more of the University’s General Education requirements, rhetorics of safety offered her a so most of our FTEs each semester come from non-majors language to express her feelings of who are just taking one Women’s Studies course. It is discomfort and presumed important for our department to meet the FTE targets set minoritarian status. by the Dean’s office every semester, in order to justify our continued existence and our constant push for more resources in the form of funds, more tenure lines, and so I must admit that I was somewhat flabbergasted by on. I now have an obligation to attract and keep enough this confession in class, and felt stymied by her invocation students enrolled in my classes, as I am invested in the of the language of safety and the manner of her delivery – future growth of my department. on the verge of tears, voice trembling. I was vexed by her use of affect to craft an emotional admission that narrowed Since I was at a conference in the days immediately the range of possible responses; as the professor, I could after the 2016 election, the first opportunity I had to talk not really tell her in the moment that her feelings were with my students was one full week later. I brought blank ‘wrong.’ Moreover, her words and mode of delivery did notecards to class and asked students to write make it clear that, however ungrounded in actual risk her anonymously on them. I gave them five minutes or so to concerns may have been, she was definitely feeling unsafe write down their feelings on one side of the notecard and on campus. Those feelings are significant. This student had their critical thoughts on the other side. I then collected leapt from a place of (political) identity to a position of the cards, redistributed them, and asked volunteers to oppression, and rhetorics of safety offered her a language read out what was on their card in order to start to express her feelings of discomfort and presumed discussion. I was hoping this process would provide enough minoritarian status. Her affective response did particular anonymity to at least open up some conversation in a more work in that moment. As Sara Ahmed notes, “emotions do neutral way, although most of the sentiments expressed by things, and they align individuals with communities – or the cards that were read were from students who were bodily space with social space – through the very intensity feeling stressed, anxious, and fearful of the implications of of their attachments” (119). The student was participating

RADICAL TEACHER 84 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.473 in an affective economy that constructed angry herself as a wounded liberal subject to forms of whiteness undocumented students and other students of color as the supposedly under threat.1 objects of fear, displacing critique of the actual systemic Because I had struggled to respond to this student in sources of threat, such as ICE, the future Trump the moment, for the next class meeting, I decided to begin Administration, and emboldened white supremacists. class with an exercise on safety and violence. I reminded I was also frustrated by her appropriation of the very my students that the language of ‘safety’ had come up in same gendered discourses of vulnerability and safety that our discussion on the election in the previous week’s class, we had been discussing throughout the semester as and explained that I wanted to push this discussion further important feminist critiques of gender and sexual to think about the relationship between safety and power. oppression, institutionalized racism, and class exploitation. This was also the week after then Vice-President Elect At the beginning of the semester, authors like Cherríe Pence had been booed by audience members at a Moraga, Audre Lorde, and the Combahee River Collective performance of Hamilton in New York, at which Brandon had provided us with critical tools to think about feminist Victor Dixon, the black actor who played vice-president politics, and our subsequent units on reproductive justice, Aaron Burr, had read a statement from the stage to Pence immigration enforcement, health care, and domestic labor that expressed alarm and anxiety about the new had made clear how women of color, poor women, Administration and called upon Pence to “uphold our immigrants, and trans people are especially vulnerable to American values and to work on behalf of all of us.” In his forms of state regulation and violence. The student’s use of mode of response that has now become horribly routine, these discourses of vulnerability and safety flattened out Trump immediately tweeted that Pence had been the real material differences in power and privilege she has “harassed” by the cast and that the theater should be a as a white person. In that moment, I wondered what my “safe” place (Mele and Healy). I also mentioned this other students were thinking, particularly those who were incident to students as an example of the multiple ways students of color, immigrants, and queer, and who were the discourse of ‘safety’ can be deployed, and how ‘safety’ feeling unsafe in the aftermath of a presidential election can serve as a floating signifier detached from material that had legitimated and activated white supremacist, conditions of risk and violence, to the extent that it can be xenophobic, and sexist beliefs and practices. I did not want actually used to silence critical perspectives on state to somehow validate this student’s use of the language of violence from marginalized populations. safety. At the same time, I was aware that I had made I asked students to do another freewriting exercise possible this admission by structuring the conversation in responding to questions like: “How are different people the way that I did. By trying to create an open space for feeling unsafe? What are the actual conditions of safety? discussion, I had set up a space that could be turned into a How do different types of violence (interpersonal, culturally relativist space in which all opinions and feelings structural) affect different groups of people? What does were considered equally valid. safety mean to you?” After the students had written The larger irony of this moment was that we had just through these questions, we had a larger class discussion started our final course unit on feminist responses to and then moved into the material for that day, which was violence, which examined different forms of about practices of criminalization and the prison racial, gender, and sexual violence through a industrial complex (Oparah). focus on mass incarceration and immigration To be honest, I am not sure how effective detention in the United States and this exercise on safety and violence was as a transnationally. For this day in class, response to the student’s comments in the students had read the introduction to Beth previous week of class. In our discussion, I Richie’s book Arrested Justice: Black attempted to make a few specific connections to Women, Violence, and America’s Prison Trump and his rhetoric during his candidacy in Nation, in which Richie presents a compelling order to get students to think more critically analysis of the nexus of interpersonal about what safety means in the context of state- violence and state violence experienced by sanctioned structural violence, but I was also many poor black women, and illustrates how trying not to put that particular student on the the mainstream anti-violence movement has spot. I think that I could have developed a more historically failed to address race and class robust discussion on the definition of safety and issues. The student who expressed concerns over her own personal safety had clearly not pushed students further to more specifically ARRESTED JUSTICE: BLACK used Richie’s analysis to reflect critically on WOMEN, VIOLENCE, AND identify practices that constitute an “unsafe” her own feelings. (Or was she able to read AMERICA’S PRISON NATION environment. In some ways, I was (too) focused BY BETH E. RICHIE (NYU Richie’s critique as an endorsement of her PRESS, 2012) on getting students to recognize state processes own use of discourses of safety?) This like policing, incarceration, and deportation as student was asserting herself as an individual subject of forms of violence that create conditions of unsafety for trauma over structural forms of trauma, which also entire populations of people. Asking them to enter into this disregarded the ways that trauma and violence are part of conversation instead through the ways that particular everyday life for many communities in the United States. individuals mobilize rhetorics of safety might have been Identifying herself as a victim enabled her to reattach more effective. I have also been thinking about the temporal pace of the current moment; what I have

RADICAL TEACHER 85 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.473 described above reflects my usual pedagogical approach of confront a student’s personal politics on the first day of using the next class period to follow up on more class. What took me by surprise in that moment was the contentious moments in the previous class period. But student’s willingness – in fact, her insistence – on maybe in this particular political moment, in which every identifying herself explicitly as a supporter of Trump. This day feels urgent and pressing, these usual pedagogical was in contrast to the student from the previous semester strategies are mis-timed? Even though I do try to think who was intentionally vague and ambiguous about her about teaching as a way of planting seeds rather than as political views. Both of these students, however, mobilized discrete moments in which transformations occur, this can discourses of safety and vulnerability to argue that they still feel inadequate in terms of pushing students to think were marginalized on the basis of their political positions. more critically about the relationships between their This conservative appropriation of wounded white identity individual lives and larger systems of state violence. is not new (Brandzel and Desai), clearly, but its articulation in a feminist classroom poses particular challenges. In retrospective, I wish I had been able to turn her comment Example two: “I voted for Trump and I’m back on to her, and ask her to explain in more detail how a feminist” she was defining feminism. That could have opened up the conversation more and allowed me to respond with an In Spring 2017, I was teaching the same Women’s explanation of feminism as a political project invested in Studies class on feminist social movements. On the first challenging and dismantling larger structural oppression on day of class, before we get into any of the course material, the basis of race, gender, class, and sexuality. I usually ask students to think about their definitions of feminism and feminist issues. Classes had started the week after the Women’s March on Washington, so on the first Conclusion day of class, I also showed students some clips of the What have these smaller moments taught me about speeches given at the March, including those of the more navigating the phenomenon of Trump feminists in Women’s progressive speakers like Janet Mock and Linda Sarsour Studies classrooms? As I have discussed, my immediate (Democracy Now!). We used this material to have a responses in these two specific examples felt inadequate at conversation about how students define feminist politics. best and like failure at worst. These reactions have helped This usually produces wide-ranging discussion that both me think about the larger questions of silencing, demonstrates the breadth of what can be considered complicity, and dissent in Women’s Studies classrooms. I feminist politics and allows me to highlight the ways that have found at my institution that directly challenging feminist movements have generated a critique of larger students who express conservative perspectives does not structures of power, in order to give students a preview of work because it puts them on the defensive, causing them the course material for the semester. to drop the class or stay silent. Yet adopting the liberal That semester, however, I was surprised by a student rhetoric of diversity of all political beliefs is not an effective who began her comment with a critique of the Women’s pedagogical strategy either, since it perpetuates a March on Washington. This student – who was also a white relativism that ignores structural inequality and oppression. woman – began by saying that she felt the Women’s March Since these encounters with Trump feminists, I have was not as inclusive as its rhetoric had promised. I was felt a renewed commitment to helping students understand initially pleased by this statement, since I hoped the the role of white supremacy in our contemporary moment, student was going to continue with a critical assessment of especially since many of them have internalized post-racist the March. Perhaps she was going to comment on the perspectives, the kinds of perspectives that undergird racial demographics of the march participants, and say white students’ claims to marginalization. I have reminded something about what it meant that so many white women myself that many Trump supporters do experience other showed up for the march in January but that many of those axes of marginalization; many of my students, including same women had not been showing up for racial justice my white students, are working class and low income, and events such as the Black Lives Matter actions over the past therefore do feel marginalized in terms of their class status few years. Or perhaps she was going to continue with a and access to resources. Many of my students have critique of the preponderance of so-called pink ‘pussy hats’ children of their own and most work at least one job while worn by many of the women at the march, and think about earning their degrees. That is, their senses of being how this symbolism could signal a particular type of trans- marginalized are often grounded in their material exclusionary gender essentialism. This student said none of experiences of capitalist exploitation, and in the effects of this. Instead, she stated that she was dismayed by the fact the dismantling of social services and support systems in that anti-abortion activists had reportedly not been the U.S. since the 1980s. These conservative students are welcomed at the march, and that as someone who voted in some ways articulating their feelings of insecurity for Trump and identified as a feminist, she took issue with through the rhetoric of safety. The challenge for me is to what she saw as the exclusionary feminist politics of the help them think critically about the actual causes of their Women’s March on Washington. feelings of unsafety and disempowerment without allowing Despite the experience from the previous semester, I them to resort to a depoliticized position of victimhood. was taken aback by this second encounter with a Trump Understanding and acknowledging explicitly in the feminist in a Women’s Studies classroom, and I struggled classroom how their socio-economic backgrounds to respond to her assertion. I did not want to dismiss or contribute to them feeling victimized is helpful to framing

RADICAL TEACHER 86 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.473 conversations in class, since one of the biggest obstacles Lipsitz, George. “How Whiteness Works: Inheritance, for them is being able to make connections between their Wealth, and Health.” The Possessive own personal situations and larger structures of inequality. Investment in Whiteness: How White People Benefit from In more recent classes, for example, I have had success Identity Politics, Temple University Press, 2006, pp. assigning readings like George Lipsitz’s The Possessive 105-117. Investment in Whiteness in order to help students understand whiteness as a “structured advantage.” I have Lorde, Audre. “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the coupled that reading with the sharing and discussion of Master’s House.” This Bridge Called My Back: Writings anonymous in-class writing about how students have by Radical Women of Color, edited by Cherríe Moraga benefitted from whiteness as an institution. This has and Gloria Anzaldúa, Kitchen Table Women of Color opened up space for me to navigate moments in which Press, 1983, pp. 98-101. conservative students mobilize discourses of safety and Mele, Christopher and Patrick Healy. “‘Hamilton’ Had Some vulnerability in resistance to course material that they find Unscripted Lines for Pence. Trump Wasn’t Happy.” The challenging to their political beliefs. New York Times, November 19, 2016, www.nytimes.com/2016/11/19/us/mike-pence- hamilton.html. Accessed January 15, 2018. Works Cited Moraga, Cherríe. “La Güera.” This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, edited by Cherríe Ahmed, Sara. “Affective Economies.” Social Text 79, Vol. Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa, Kitchen Table Women of 22, No. 2, 2004, pp. 117-139. Color Press, 1983, pp. 27-34.

Brandzel, Amy L and Jigna Desai. “Race, Violence, and Oparah, Julia Chinyere. “Celling Black Bodies: Black Terror: The Cultural Defensibility of Heteromasculine Women in the Global Prison Industrial Complex.” Citizenship in the Virginia Tech Massacre and the Don Feminist Review 80 (2005): 162-179. Imus Affair.” Journal of Asian American Studies, Vol. 11, No. 1, 2008, pp. 61-85. Richie, Beth E. “Introduction.” Arrested Justice: Black Women, Violence, and America’s Prison Nation, New California State University, Sacramento. “Our Students and York University Press, 2012, pp. 1-22. Faculty by the Numbers.” www.csus.edu/about/. Accessed 15 November 2017. Notes The Combahee River Collective. “A Black Feminist 1 Statement,” Feminist Theory Reader: Local and Global I am indebted to Kiran Asher and Lezlie Frye’s paper, Perspectives, edited by Carole R. McCann and Seung- “Power, Politics, and Push-back in Feminist Classrooms,” Kyung Kim, Routledge, 2003, pp. 163-171. presented at the American Studies Association conference in November 2017, for this last point. “Democracy Now! Special Broadcast from the Women’s March on Washington.” January 21, 2017. www.democracynow.org/live/watch_inauguration_201 7_womens_march_live. Accessed 30 January 2018.

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RADICAL TEACHER 87 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.473 ISSN: 1941-0832

Refusing to Wait: Just-in-Time Teaching

by Ann J. Cahill and Tom Mould

PHOTO BY ICONS8 TEAM

RADICAL TEACHER 88 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.466

hree days after the 2016 presidential election, a University administrators quickly gave their approval, the professor at Elon University (a medium-sized, private Peace and Social Justice program agreed to offer the class T university in North Carolina) emailed a group of under their program, and in the third week of December, colleagues, students, and friends, suggesting that they the university’s registrar sent an email to all students, brainstorm ideas of how to respond productively to the informing them of the class and inviting them to register election results. That email conversation led to several for it. Detailed planning for the course began in early initiatives. An early concrete action was a letter signed by January. By the time the class began less than a month over 500 faculty and staff and published in the university’s later, we had assembled a teaching team of 22 faculty and student newspaper that stated support for students staff members who would serve as presenters, organizers, belonging to groups who experienced increased and discussion leaders, all of whom offered their time and vulnerability in the wake of the election (Huber et al 2016). energy in addition to their regular course load and Community members interested in sharing ideas about professional obligations (in other words, participating in activism and engagement began to meet regularly. By the this class did not count toward a faculty member’s course end of the month, several of the faculty and staff on this load, and no additional compensation was provided for original email thread had signed on to perhaps the most staff who participated in it). Over 80 students registered audacious idea that had been generated: to develop and for the class. offer a one-credit course in the upcoming spring semester The process of designing the class was challenging, for designed to provide students with intellectual and practical at least four reasons: skills that would be useful in facing the social and political challenges that had been revealed in sharp relief during the 1. Time pressures: we began the process of campaign. designing the class in earnest in early December, and the first class meeting was on February 1. This article describes the process of developing the course, its structure and content, and its effects on the 2. Uncharted territory: we were designing a highly students, faculty, and staff who participated in it. The unusual class, the likes of which had never been article also discusses strengths and weaknesses of the taught at Elon University, and so there were no course design as a means of helping to ensure the success ready templates or norms that we could rely on. of any future endeavors. The course, which eventually 3. The number of cooks in the kitchen: as the came to be titled “Refusing to Wait: Intellectual and planning continued, the core organizing group Practical Resources for Troubled Times,” is an example of eventually consisted of five faculty and staff: how institutions of higher education can respond quickly Professor of Religion Toddie Peters and Professor and effectively to political developments, while keeping of Anthropology and Folklore Tom Mould who student learning at the center of their mission. served as lead instructors, and Assistant Dean of Campus Life and Director of Residence Life The course, which eventually Uchenna Baker, Professor of Philosophy Ann came to be titled “Refusing to Wait: Cahill, and Director of Inclusive Community Well- Intellectual and Practical Resources Being Leigh-Anne Royster. Not surprisingly, there for Troubled Times,” is an example were differences of opinion about the focus of the class, the details of the course description, of how institutions of higher learning outcomes, and so on. While we were education can respond quickly and lucky to have a high degree of collegiality and effectively to political honesty among the core organizers, the number developments, while keeping of people involved combined with the time student learning at the center of pressure meant that the planning sessions could their mission. be somewhat fraught -- but also invigorating. It was important to all involved with the course that there were both faculty and staff participants The Origins of “Refusing to Wait” involved in every step of planning and implementation; this wide representation from The faculty and staff who committed to working on the across different programs and offices allowed for a course were motivated by what they perceived as profound deep understanding of students’ intellectual needs and imminent threats to democratic institutions and ideals. and interests. They believed that students would be well-served by a class that focused on utilizing the disciplinary knowledge of 4. Navigating the political waters; this was a major the university’s faculty and staff to both understand and topic of discussion among the core group of respond effectively to the current political situation. What organizers from the very inception of the course. began as a series of informal conversations and There was little doubt that it was the presidential brainstorming soon led to an interest meeting with more election of 2016 that motivated the course, and than thirty faculty, staff and students. By the end of the for the core organizers as individuals, it was the first week of December, dozens of faculty and staff agreed particular result of that election that provided a to participate in the course, while eight faculty and staff sense of urgency. Yet everyone agreed that our committed to developing and organizing the one-credit- responsibilities as educators required us to design hour, pass/fail class, to be offered in the spring semester.

RADICAL TEACHER 89 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.466 a course that was resolutely nonpartisan. To be Students will: nonpartisan, however, is not to be value-neutral be able to evaluate news sources and stories or value-free; we wanted the course to focus on, including identifying fake news among other things, understanding the value of democratic institutions and principles that we be able to rhetorically analyze the arguments believed to be at the heart of both the role of the made about racism, sexism, etc. university and democratic society in general. The be able to develop rhetorically sound, challenge, of course, was that one of the two evidence-based arguments major political parties in the US had selected as its standard bearer a candidate who espoused be able to recognize confirmation bias in their profoundly undemocratic beliefs, and in doing so own lives and apply tools to avoid it had politicized principles that had previously been understood as nonpartisan and foundational to our be able to clearly articulate how racism, democracy, for example, a belief in an sexism, etc. are structurally embedded in independent, free press, or the epistemological society value of evidence and science. To take a stance in be able to evaluate the effectiveness of favor of evidence, then, or against clear, explicit various types of social action for various forms of white supremacy (such as the contexts and issues brandishing of Nazi flags), could be read as being biased against the Republican party. Ultimately, be able to have constructive conversations the group committed to being as transparent as with people who didn’t vote the way they did possible about the ethical, political, and be able to actively listen epistemological assumptions upon which the class depended, and took the position that those be able to talk with people different from assumptions were not ones that should serve to themselves exclude the participation of any reasonable learn to grant their peers the space to work member of a democratic society, regardless of through complicated and sensitive issues party affiliation. learn to accept feedback when their words cause harm or distress The Structure of “Refusing to Wait” be able to understand how legislation is built The class was designed as a one-credit class that on and will contribute to beliefs and actions would meet once a week throughout the spring semester, that have very real impacts on people at a time that minimized schedule conflicts with other understand how symbols can be used to classes. All students would take it on a pass-fail basis, and make arguments their grade would be entirely based on attendance and participation. The guiding principle in developing the be able to discuss the tension between structure and the scheduling of the class was to make it as politicized issues and partisan issues accessible to as many students as possible. learn to identify and challenge dominant The final course title and description were as follows: discourses

PSJ 171: Refusing to Wait: Intellectual and Practical In addition, during the first class meeting, one of the Resources for Troubling Times organizers presented the underlying assumptions of the class, articulated as follows: The recent US presidential election sent shockwaves through a variety of political, academic, and social Evidence matters; we will interrogate claims, communities, both within the US and abroad. In its wake, particularly empirical claims, based on the people are seeking resources to participate effectively on a quality of evidence that is offered in favor of variety of levels, from the familial to the federal. While them; leaders in every party expressed shock and outrage at the No party has cornered the market on racism, discriminatory rhetoric that emerged leading up to the sexism and xenophobia, but in this current election, figuring out a path forward has proven difficult. In political context, some of these ideas have this course, we will dig into issues of race, gender, been tied explicitly to parties and politicians; economic injustice, and xenophobia in the evolving, post- election landscape. We will focus on developing intellectual We share a commitment to democratic (small and practical resources for responding effectively to threats “d”) ideals (such as freedom of the press, facing individuals, communities, and democratic freedom of expression, pluralism, and so on); institutions. This course will be pass/fail with grades based and on attendance and participation. We share a commitment to fight against The core organizing group also developed the following systematic inequalities (there exists list of student learning outcomes: significant disagreement about how to

RADICAL TEACHER 90 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.466 understand those inequalities, and how to 1. Advocacy and Direct Action address them; but we’re not going to spend 2. Inclusive Community at Elon University time arguing about whether they exist or whether they matter) 3. Art as Social Protest

In designing the daily structure of the class, the 4. Climate Change organizers had multiple pedagogical goals. Part of the 5. Responding to ACTBAC (a local white urgency of the course came from a sense that there was supremacy nationalist group) important disciplinary knowledge that would be useful to students in this particular moment. This disciplinary 6. Talking Across the Aisle knowledge included historical information about white nationalist movements in US history; theoretical 7. Immigrant and Refugee Rights frameworks regarding gender inequality; and cutting edge 8. Criminal Justice Reform research regarding algorithms, social media, and propaganda. While we valued the transmission of such There were thirteen class meetings during the spring disciplinary knowledge in short lectures, we also knew that semester. Although the organizers were aware of the students would need to discuss the primary course content possibility that political events would require some last- in small groups in order to process it effectively. Finally, we minute adjustments, they scheduled the first ten plenary wanted to create the opportunity for students to put what sessions, leaving the last three open for an additional they were learning into action, to emphasize the plenary session and presentations from the action groups connection between disciplinary knowledge and the need (although, as we describe below, the last few weeks did for social and political engagement. not go exactly according to plan). After some on-the-fly adjustments during the semester, the topics for the first Accordingly, we decided that each class meeting would ten plenary sessions were as follows: have three distinct parts: a plenary presentation by a member of the teaching team (25 minutes); small group discussions, with the membership of the small groups Week 1 Plenary: Why this Election is Different remaining consistent throughout the semester (25 minutes); and social action work (25 minutes). The topics Guest lecturer: Jason Husser, Assistant Professor of of the social action groups would be developed by the Political Science students over the first several weeks of the class, and then Week 2 Plenary: Democracy and Critical Thinking students would decide which groups they wanted to join. Guest lecturer: Stephen Bloch-Schulman, Associate For the plenary presentation, the presenter(s) would Professor of Philosophy assign relatively short readings that would take no more than an hour to read and provide discussion leaders with at Week 3 Plenary: Fake News least 3 prompts to guide the small group discussions. Guest lecturers: Derek Lackaff, Associate Professor of Plenary presenters remained in the class throughout the Communications, and Jonathan Albright, Assistant small group discussions and were available to answer any Professor of Communications emerging questions that the students and facilitators had. Week 4 Plenary: Oppression & Intersectionality Each discussion group had 8-10 students as well as two discussion leaders (it turned out to be useful to have Guest lecturers: Ann J. Cahill, Professor of Philosophy, two discussion leaders in case one of them could not and Leigh-Anne Royster, Director of Inclusive attend the class in any given week). The discussion leaders Community Well-Being committed to being familiar with the course syllabus, Week 5 Plenary: The Creation of a Narrative of policies, and discussion norms; attending the plenary White Oppression presentations; taking attendance; bringing the prompts to the discussion group; and being available to the action Guest lecturers: Tom Mould, Professor of groups on an as-needed basis. Anthropology, and Jim Bissett, Professor of History

For the first two weeks, the social action segment of Week 6 Plenary: Freedom of Expression the class was a two-part introduction to social change that Guest lecturer: Brooke Barnett, Professor of focused on the history of social change in the United States Communications and Associate Provost for Inclusive the first week and introducing students to various Community strategies of social change in the second week. This brief introduction to social action work was intended to help Week 7 Plenary: Locker Room Talk guide students in developing their social action plans. After identifying various topics of interest, the third class session Guest lecturers: Leigh-Anne Royster, Director of included a process for students to discuss various options Inclusive Community Well-Being, and Detric Robinson, and coalesce into working groups. From week four on, the Community Director for the Daniely Neighborhood action groups were led primarily by students, with some Week 8 Plenary: Islamophobia involvement by members of the teaching team. Eventually, 8 action groups coalesced, with the following themes: Guest Lecturer: Brian Pennington, Professor of Religious Studies

RADICAL TEACHER 91 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.466 Week 9 Plenary: Build a Wall (The Ethics of meeting a week, and the quality of student leadership was Borders) lower than we had hoped for.

Guest lecturers: Uchenna Baker, Assistant Dean of As the end of the semester grew closer, the core group Campus Life and Ryan Johnson, Assistant Professor of of organizers started talking about different ways of Philosophy concluding the class. We wanted the students to feel empowered and inspired, and to have the feeling that the Week 10 Plenary: Make America Great Again class was launching them into their communities with a (Unpacking a Slogan) renewed sense of purpose and urgency. We had planned to Guest lecturers: Rebecca Todd Peters, Professor of have each action group make a presentation on whatever Religious Studies, and Jason Husser, Assistant project they had undertaken, but thought that one class Professor of Political Science period was sufficient for those presentations. What we needed, we thought, was a “ringer” – a surprise guest from

outside the university community, perhaps a well-known The specific topics chosen for the plenary resulted activist, politician, or community leader who could give our from an intersection of priorities identified by the core students a rousing send-off. Working from the assumption organizers, the students (determined by a survey that that it didn’t hurt to ask, we began sending emails to public went out in mid-January to students who had registered for figures, inviting them to help us to conclude this unique the class) and the availability of specific faculty and staff class in a fittingly dramatic way. on campus. We were painfully aware, of course, of the Our audacity resulted in something far better than any many topics that we could not address directly, but we of us had imagined. At the beginning of the second to last were confident that the ones that we identified were well week of the class, none of our inquiries had borne any worth our students’ time and attention. fruit; our invitations had been met with refusals (which in The core organizers continued to meet on a weekly some cases were accompanied by enthusiastic support for basis throughout the spring semester, adapting the the class and its goals) or had been ignored, and we began schedule and topics as necessary, and addressing planning for a final class that would bring together multiple challenges that arose with individual students or the class plenary speakers to discuss how their different topics were as a whole. Most of those challenges were fairly predictable related. Then, two days before the second to last class, we -- there were some discussion groups that didn’t gel, for received an exciting invitation. Melissa Harris-Perry, the example, and time management was a constant struggle, prominent journalist, author, and speaker who holds the given the size of the class, the brevity of the plenary Maya Angelou Presidential Chair at Wake Forest University sessions, and the need to rearrange the room twice during (while also directing the Pro Humanitate Institute and the 100-minute period. Not surprisingly, there were two or serving as the founding director of the Anna Julia Cooper three students who challenged the content of the course, Center) responded to our email by inviting the entire class and accused it of having an anti-Republican bias. The core – all 92 faculty, staff, and students – to join the class she group of organizers and the discussion leaders worked was concluding at her house for dinner in two days’ time. together to respond to such challenges as constructively We scrambled to arrange transportation (her house was and clearly as possible, referring back to the learning about an hour’s drive from our university) and to outcomes and the guiding assumptions that were encourage our students to take advantage of this presented in the first class. Finally, as the semester remarkable opportunity. And so the penultimate meeting of continued, some students dropped out of the class, citing the Refusing to Wait class took place at the welcoming other time pressures and commitments. A total of 70 home of our generous host, who shared with us her students completed the class. bracing responses to the current political situation.

On the whole, though, as the semester started coming We still had one class meeting left, and dinner with to an end, the teaching team was pleased with the way the Melissa Harris-Perry was a tough act to follow. But the core class was going. Conversations were generally lively and group of organizers wanted to return to the theme of social substantial (although discussion leaders always saw room and political engagement one more time. We began the for improvement along these lines), the material presented class in focus groups to synthesize course material, was obviously related to current events, and students were encouraging students to reflect on what they did, and did making important connections between the material being not get out of the class. We then asked them to reflect on discussed and their own rights and responsibilities. the work they did in their Social Action groups and to jot However, the action groups seemed to be lacking in focus down on a Post-It note what they planned to do related to and momentum, for a variety of reasons. Perhaps most their topic. Finally, we asked them to think about their own importantly, it had taken longer than we had expected for personal commitments they would make by completing the the social action groups to form –several weeks were spent following sentences: “I refuse to wait for…” and “I commit on brainstorming ideas, and so students didn’t commit to to…” The questions were strategic because a few minutes specific groups until about halfway through the semester, later we presented them with two gifts, generously funded leaving insufficient time for both planning and by a variety of university departments and offices: a copy implementing a project. In addition, making progress on of Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the any particular project was difficult with only one scheduled Twentieth Century (2017) and a custom-designed T-shirt with the phrase “Refusing to Wait” on it. We then provided paint pens and encouraged the students to customize their

RADICAL TEACHER 92 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.466 shirts by adding exactly what they were refusing to wait The data below, however, focuses on the formal for, and what steps they were going to undertake toward assessment measures we conducted at the end of the that end. For example, some wrote that they were course. For students, our questions focused on the course refusing to wait for “LGBTQIA equality,” and that they were goals. We conducted both an online survey to gather going to “work toward equal rights and representation of quantitative data as well as an hour-long focus group to trans people.” The final act of the class was taking a photo gather qualitative data. Students remained in their same of the assembled faculty, staff, and students: discussion groups for the focus groups, but we rotated discussion leaders so that the students would feel more comfortable commenting honestly on the discussion portion of the class. We also followed up with a brief survey approximately one year after the class began to assess any long- term impacts of the course.

For the teaching team, our questions focused on the course structure. We combined quantitative and qualitative measures in a single online survey that asked both open and closed-ended questions. The vast majority of the data is therefore direct assessment. Final grades do not provide indirect assessment since they were based on attendance and participation rather than graded work. However, we did ask the teaching team to comment on student presentations to provide some indirect assessment of student work. Assessment Student Feedback Throughout the designing and implementation of the class, students were invited to provide input and feedback Students filled out a 15-question survey targeting each in multiple ways. Before the course began, as mentioned of the course goals. 59 of the 70 students completed the briefly above, we surveyed students asking them four survey for an 84% response rate (Figure 1). questions: Combining the “strongly agree,” “agree,” and Generally, what do you hope to get out of this class? “somewhat agree” columns for all 15 questions suggests the relative success of the course for each question (Figure Specifically, what intellectual skills do you hope to 2). develop? Overall, the majority of students agreed that all fifteen Specifically, what practical skills do you hope to of the course goals were met. In particular, students felt develop? that the class was most effective in improving their abilities Do you have any concerns or reservations about this to rhetorically analyze arguments about key course topics; class? develop their own rhetorically sound, evidence-based arguments; articulate how social inequities such as sexism During the course, students developed ideas for and racism are structurally embedded in society; evaluate actions, voted on them, and engaged in social action news sources; and recognize confirmation bias in their own groups accordingly. We also asked students to propose lives. They found other goals somewhat less effectively ideas and vote on plenary session topics in order to ensure met, including accepting feedback when their words cause that we captured evolving student interest as well as the harm or distress; understanding how legislation is built on changing landscape of current events. More informally, we and contributes to beliefs and actions with very real talked to our discussion groups to see what was working impacts; and having constructive conversations with and not working for them in order to tweak the class as we people who voted differently from themselves. went. We held similar conversations with the discussion leaders, focusing particularly on how we could improve discussions and facilitate social action group work.

RADICAL TEACHER 93 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.466 The focus groups we held on the final day of class provides some insight into the statistics as well as identifying more clearly the specific areas of the class that did and did not resonate with the students. Focus group facilitators used five questions to structure the conversation, though discussions often moved in additional, productive directions:

What did you get out of the class?

Have you changed and if so, how?

What will you do differently if anything?

Did you engage others outside of class and if so, how?

What did you hope to get out of the class but didn’t?

Many of the conversations focused on what students got out of the class. The responses were wide and varied, but FIGURE 1. RESULTS OF STUDENT SURVEY TARGETING EACH OF THE COURSE GOALS mirrored many of the course goals. With so many, we have to share with a group of caring peers. Felt like listed them below, beginning with those comments made they were truly heard. most often. Chance to work with students who shared Chance to discuss current events with similar views about social justice. accurate information. Chance to delve into Encouraged questioning. Saw faculty and staff these issues much deeper than casual modeling what it looks like to be an engaged conversations. citizen. Chance to hear from students with different Opportunity to explore areas of disagreement views, different academic backgrounds, rather than stop once I realized I was in the different personal backgrounds. minority. Interdisciplinarity. Saw how the same subject Practice and confidence to tackle challenging could be approached from many different questions lenses. Humanized current issues that changed how I Seeing faculty and staff working together, view current events. Different impacts for learning together. different groups. Chance to think critically with others. Helped remove the barrier between Learned to identify and avoid logical fallacies. academics and “real life”

Explored underlying causes to major issues. For many students, simply having peers committed to Saw patterns. Learned about intersectionality. the same goals of social justice, who were in class solely out of interest rather than as a curricular requirement, The energy and passion of everyone in the made this experience a particularly memorable and class. Peers who really wanted to be there invigorating one. They were similarly energized by seeing rather than having to be there for some the teaching team engaged in the same questions they requirement. were. Noticeably absent was mention of the social action Opportunity to talk personally about how part of the course. When conversation shifted to areas of these issues affected them. A relief to be able

RADICAL TEACHER 94 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.466 found their most fruitful conversations to be outside class with their fellow RTW classmates. When they spoke to friends with staunch partisan views, conversations were less productive, falling into a he said/she said pattern. Some students felt that there were people in their communities who were simply “unreachable.” When they engaged friends with less entrenched views, they found their peers generally receptive, though many students noted that their friends would appear initially interested, but not for a sustained conversation. The same was true for some family members.

A handful of students mentioned bringing the conversation into their other classes, particularly Women, Gender and Sexualities Studies, Poverty and Social Justice, and

International Studies classes. FIGURE 2: COMBINED STUDENT RESPONSES OF “STRONGLY AGREE,” “AGREE” AND “SOMEWHAT AGREE.” Although students were overwhelmingly satisfied with the the class that did not work as well, the social action groups course, not all of their expectations were met. Some were mentioned in virtually every focus group. wanted clarity on their own views but felt they got In terms of how students changed, some noted that complexity rather than conclusions. Many wanted an they did not feel they had changed, clarifying that they opportunity to practice “talking across the aisle” more. A came to the class committed to social justice, and left the few mentioned wishing they had been asked to write an same way. Many, however, commented on changes to how op-ed or a letter to their representative to apply the skills they approach and discuss difficult topics, noting that they discussed in class. By far, however, the most common are more conscientious about using evidence to support disappointment involved the social action groups. Everyone their claims, more open minded, less likely to believe they agreed that we simply did not have enough time to develop are right, less likely to judge, and more interested in much less carry out a significant action plan. listening to others to truly understand their point of view rather than just win an argument. While some said they Teaching Team Feedback felt much more informed and aware, others commented on realizing how little they know and how much they have to At the end of the semester, we asked all of the learn. Even still, there was general consensus that they felt discussion leaders and plenary speakers in the course to fill more confident and comfortable engaging in difficult out an online survey with a mix of 16 open and close conversations. At least one student noted that issues they ended question. 15 of the 22 members of the teaching once dismissed as insignificant they now saw as significant. team completed the survey for a response rate of 68%. It Moving forward, many students said they would seek is relevant to point out that only 2 of the 5 members of the out people who have different ideas from themselves. They core organizing group completed the survey so the were tired of the echo chamber and excited about having responses do not overly represent their views. discussions with people with different views. Others were Members of the teaching team were fairly consistent in more specific about preparing for such conversations, seeing the overall structure of the course as a basically working to get the facts before throwing out their opinions, good one, rating it as either “very effective” (67%) or looking for evidence before believing something, and “moderately effective” (33%), but with areas that could be getting their news from multiple sources. The fact that so improved. The plenary sessions were viewed as particularly many of the students’ plans for the future revolve around valuable for the salient topics selected and depth speakers having difficult conversations is no doubt tied to their achieved in such a short amount of time (17% found them experiences attempting to do so. Students discussed their “extremely effective” while the remaining 83% found them efforts to engage others outside of class, identifying “very effective”). Those sessions that were identified as roommates, friends, and parents as their most common particularly effective noted the clarity of the readings, the conversation partners. Perhaps not surprisingly, many inclusion of concrete data, the application of theory to

RADICAL TEACHER 95 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.466 relevant current events, and the development of thoughtful would not have the same level of interest among either the and thought-provoking discussion questions. Those students or our colleagues to do it again, and the sense plenaries that were viewed as less successful were too that this course erupted out of a moment that was both complex, too vague, or too ambitious. emotionally and intellectually challenging, and that while we see the importance of maintaining that energy and That ambivalence about the overall structure of the refusing to allow the acceptance of sexist, racist, course seems to have centered particularly on the Islamaphobic, homophobic, xenophobic, and anti- discussion groups. Forty percent of respondents found intellectualism to become the new normal, this class may them “extremely effective,” while the same number found have been a powerful but only a first response. them only “moderately effective” (with the remaining 20% finding them “very effective”). During the semester, our informal discussions among the discussion leaders often …We see the importance focused on issues with the discussion groups, including of…refusing to allow the acceptance uneven participation, lack of depth in the comments, and of sexist, racist, Islamophobic, disconnect with the plenary session. homophobic, xenophobic, and anti- Particularly effective aspects of the discussions intellectualism to become the new included the opportunity students had to discuss current normal[;] this class may have been events in an intellectually informed but informal way. Some a powerful but only a first response. felt that students do not typically get such opportunities at Elon University, and that the chance to address social action within this conversation was particularly impactful. However, it is possible that the labor involved in One particularly effective discussion occurred when that designing and running the course could be redistributed by day’s plenary session speaker joined the group. Other moving to a more student-led model, a move that could powerful moments occurred when students got comfortable potentially be more sustainable either on a short-term or enough to really open up, whether in confronting another long-term basis. Different models would be possible group member for dominating discussion or expressing depending on institutional structures and resources; at one’s political frustrations that did not easily conform to Elon University, we currently have a program that allows the rest of the group. Generally, discussions improved over students to take primary responsibility for teaching non- the semester as students became more comfortable with credit classes. A course like Refusing to Wait could be each other, but some members of the teaching team felt adopted by students and adapted to fit this program. The the amount of time allocated for discussion was not model for Refusing to Wait might also allow the university sufficient. to consider a new program where the students took the lead in determining topics and inviting guest lecturers, a As with the students, the social action component was possibility that would continue to leverage the considerable viewed as being one of the weakest parts of the class, due expertise of the faculty while ensuring that students were primarily to time constraints. While the teaching team felt responsible both for the specific themes addressed in the that at least some groups were effective in synthesizing class and the daily logistics. Of course, such a student-led course material into a clear action plan, all or most did not. course would still require an unusual sense of political Weaknesses identified among less successful groups urgency (at least for typical students of Elon), and it is included on the one hand reinventing the wheel rather than unclear whether the sense of urgency that inspired the building on previous work, and on the other, simply creation of this course is persisting, or even could persist participating in existing organizations without carving out across multiple years. And of course the matter of whether new ground. the course would receive credit may influence student Finally, we asked what the teaching team took away interest in taking the course. Finally, the development of from the course. Many of their responses echoed the such a course would still take considerable investment, in students. They appreciated having the opportunity to learn terms of time and energy, on the part of the faculty who about areas outside their own expertise from multiple would guide the students in at least its first incarnation and disciplinary perspectives and talk about current events with perhaps beyond. similarly engaged people. More than anything, the teaching Although we have no plans to attempt to teach such a team expressed excitement, inspiration and gratitude in class again, many of the students and the teaching team working with students so passionate and committed to offered suggestions for improving the class if we did, or if social justice. other universities wanted to attempt something similar. Those suggestions included the following: Recommendations for the Future Reconsider the social action component. Reduce the number of groups. Students At the end of the course, many students asked if we suggested having more faculty guidance to would be teaching this course again. Colleagues asked the help them avoid dead ends that cost valuable same question, both those who did not participate and time. those who did. Our answer was fairly uniform: we would love to, but we don’t think we will. Among the course Flip the classroom. Videotape the plenary organizers, our reasons included the incredible amount of sessions and have students watch them uncompensated time and energy, the concern that we

RADICAL TEACHER 96 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.466 before class, allowing our meeting times to home and was similarly struck by the conversation. One of focus more on discussion. the students in the van shared their story of being a Dreamer, a minor brought to the U.S. by undocumented Include time for Q&A with the plenary parents. Another student asked a number of questions, and speakers. the two of them respectfully disagreed about some key More aggressively recruit students from issues surrounding immigration. Other students on the van diverse political viewpoints. entered the conversation in one of the most thoughtful and mature conversations Tom had heard on immigration Scale back the number of course goals. between people of varied viewpoints. It was not a pile-on. Find time to address current events. While only one student shared views similar to Trump’s “Build a Wall” ideology, students diverged greatly on how Aspects of the class that worked well and should be to resolve thorny immigration issues. No one raised voices. maintained if a course like this was to be taught again, Some shared statistics and research findings; others include informative plenary sessions to provide shared personal experiences. People took turns and the foundational knowledge, discussion groups with the same conversation slowly shifted from the specifics of the initial students each week to develop trust and rapport, and a story to a more robust conversation about immigration diverse group of instructors to ensure multidisciplinary and policy. At the end of the van ride, Tom privately asked the interdisciplinary perspectives. student whose personal story had started the discussion what they thought of the conversation. “Incredible. I was finally heard.” A few days later, the professor ran into the Conclusion student who had disagreed with many others on the bus Just as the students took away lessons learned from and asked them the same question. “I have a lot to think the course, so, too, did we. Many of us have revised about now. It’s a lot more complicated than they make it sections of our own courses to draw in some of the course seem.” The professor asked him who “they” was. “The content from the plenary sessions. Others of us have been media, I guess.” These various comments capture a working to provide more opportunities for our students to glimpse of the range of impacts of this unique course. build social action plans into. As course organizer, Some were empowered to speak on issues when they administrator, and staff member Uchenna Baker explained, normally wouldn’t, some shared deeply personal stories “An important aspect of the course for the staff was the and were heard in ways they had not been before, and idea of modeling for our students the democratic practices some were challenged to move beyond the sound bites of that we are calling them to espouse within and beyond the partisan politics. walls of the classroom. That is, as educators we must have The extent to which the class has continued to impact a willingness to be in the gap, in the breakdown, and students is more difficult to assess. Almost exactly one reconcile the cognitive dissonance that is unearthed. We year after the course began, we sent students a short 3 have to be willing to inquire into the premise of our beliefs question follow up survey to see what, if anything, they to reveal our faulty assumptions; otherwise we put them in had done or were still doing because of the class. 15 action and they become the truth. The truth becomes students out of 70 answered the survey for a 21% something to protect and we hold on. This course invited response rate. However, 49 were seniors and many may both educator and student to collectively think and not have received the email. Based on the feedback, we dialogue more critically about the implications that the know at least one senior did respond, but if the rest were 2016 elections had for all of us. More importantly, the not seniors, the response rate would be 15 out of 22 or course called for all of us to commit to action beyond the 68%. walls of the classroom. As an administrator, the beauty of dialogue across race, gender, political affiliation, and one’s We asked them what aspects of the class, if any, do role at the university was realized. But more importantly, you continue to reflect upon? Almost a third of them the belief in the power of collective action was renewed as mentioned the theory of intersectionality. The next most a result of the course.” common responses was having tough conversations with people of different viewpoints. Again, although the end of Course leaders were not the only ones to leave with semester survey suggested this was one of the least renewed confidence and commitment to civic engagement successful course goals, the qualitative data makes clear and dialogue. In the focus groups, for example, a number that for those students who felt it was achieved, it was a of students commented that they felt better prepared to life changer. engage in conversations with their peers. Students in Ann Cahill’s focus group spoke animatedly about the Not surprisingly, only 2 of the 15 said they continued opportunity to talk with peers with very different views in a work with their social action groups, with most students space of shared respect and interest. Another student attributing their lack of follow-through to lack of time. The recalled an experience from class just one week earlier: vast majority of respondents did, however, make good on “One student had very different opinions from the rest of the promises they made in answering what they were the people in the van. I saw many moments of using refusing to wait for. A few students didn’t answer, a few evidence and facts. Before this class, I would not have others didn’t remember, but of the nine who did, their been able to respond effectively.” Tom Mould was in that responses are worth including in their entirety: van as they drove back from the prominent journalist’s

RADICAL TEACHER 97 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.466 1. Equality. Going to grad school to serve thank maggie castor, Bob Frigo, Evan Gatti, Joel Harter, underserved populations!! Frank Hartfield, Deandra Little, Shannon Lundeen, Joan Ruelle, and Rebecca Scott. We would also like to thank 2. For people to stop being racist and members of Elon University's administration, as well as the discriminatory. I am in DEEP which is a social Office of the Registrar, for supporting the implementation justice club. of this class. 3. Equal rights for women; I’m not afraid to

have conversations with skeptics or male supremacists.

4. Equal rights and I've supported the women's Works Cited movement this past year. Huber, Lynn R., Tom Mould and Ann J. Cahill. 2016. “Letter 5. I am refusing to wait for others to speak for to the Editor: Faculty and staff members stand in me. solidarity with students who have been made to feel vulnerable.” Elon News Network, November 19. 6. Gender equality. Pursuing career in domestic http://www.elonnewsnetwork.com/article/2016/11/fac violence and sexual assault victim advocacy. ulty-members-stand-in-solidarity-with-students-who- 7. Racial justice. Since our class I've read all I have-been-made-to-feel-vulnerable. could on the subject. Snyder, Timothy. 2017. On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from 8. Community empowerment. I was thinking the Twenty-First Century. New York: Tim Duggan about the work a few of my friends in Chapel Books. Hill do with the Community Empowerment

Fund (worth looking into) and searched for similar organizations and programs in the town I moved to. I got involved with SURJ for a brief moment, but there wasn't a whole lot of infrastructure in my city's chapter. I've made intentional efforts to support the local economy, but I'm continuing to look for ways I can apply myself to not only my town, but also other communities in the world. Thinking about community empowerment is helping me narrow my geographic focus when considering locations for potential applied research projects.

But perhaps the most breathtaking answer of all was:

I’m refusing to wait for permission to do what I can to make the world a more empathetic place. I’ve decided to run for elected office in my hometown.

While specific impacts may have been fleeting for many, the course seems to have encouraged at least some to believe they can change the world, providing a glimmer of hope that democratic thinking and social justice has a new cadre of defenders.

Acknowledgments We would like to recognize the 22 faculty and staff who gave their time, energy, and willingness to be open, be challenged, learn, act and grow as a community of scholars and civically minded citizens. In addition to the course leaders already mentioned, and the plenary speakers listed in the course schedule, we would like to

RADICAL TEACHER 98 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.466 Appendix: Social Action and Personal Commitments Made by Participants of RTW

Social Action Commitments

Work at Campus Kitchen (just got the job)

Refusing to wait for racial injustice. I commit to challenging white supremacist culture on Elon University’s campus

Trying to engage with groups outside my norm

Refusing to wait to engage students in politics. I commit to responding and embracing civic engagement initiatives at Elon University and beyond

Work with Elon University admin to be able to put the bathroom newsletters up on Elon University’s campus

Refusing to wait for equality. I commit to engaging with my local, state, and federal representatives multiple times a week

I will continue to inspire friends to contact congress members and will help finish all the survey responses

We commit to being fearless, unapologetic, and mother-f-ing awesome

Working with the people’s assembly and relevant social justice orgs in Alamance County to build and respond to human rights challenges

Refusing to wait for gender equality

Refusing to wait for people to care about climate change

Our social action group didn’t really meet our goal, but I want us to continue to have an open mind when having meaningful conversations

Increase the availability of spaces on Elon University’s campus where students can freely and publicly express themselves-- especially via art

I commit to becoming more involved in my local community's efforts for advocacy and direct action

Refusing to wait for recognition as an equal. I commit to continue fighting for what I believe in

Climate change, education, and support

I commit to advocate for intersectional goals through my words and actions

I commit to continue working with victims of sexual assault

I am committed to further understand the criminal justice system and end the stigma surrounding the incarcerated

Refusing to wait for human rights. I commit to creating artwork in my personal and public life that calls out social injustice

Ongoing commitments: photo project (collect stories) and meet up with groups to discuss deadlines

Informing friends and family about the injustices in the justice system

I commit to finding creative ways to respond to issues I care about

Education on campus about the sources of Islamophobia

I commit to help prevent climate change

Refusing to wait for environmental action

Continuing to promote criminal justice reform education

Getting the Elon University community to have conversations about social action from both sides of the aisle

I will more actively participate in action that supports my causes in my hometown

I commit to writing about an education others about conservation issues like climate change and habitat destruction

RADICAL TEACHER 99 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.466 Continue to advocate for, educate on, and support women’s rights

I’m committing to continuing open-minded conversations about political topics that are normally difficult to discuss, and not staying silent when I disagree

I commit to creating a space at Elon University where students feel comfortable expressing themselves through art

I commit to begin a revolution rather than waiting for it to begin. I wish to eliminate disparities and relieve oppression

Refusing to wait for increasing global perspectives. I commit to hearing all perspectives before forming an opinion

I am refusing to wait for community empowerment. I aim to join/volunteer for local organizations that immediate impacts on a grassroots level.

Educate people about criminal justice system.

Break stigma about previously incarcerated people.

I commit to listening to others when they disagree with me and keeping an open mind when talking across the aisle, as to recognize that I am not always correct.

I commit to actively listening in conversations across the aisle. I’m refusing to wait to… be informed.

I commit to make Elon University a more inclusive campus.

Refusing to wait for political action. I commit to contacting my Congressman and voicing my opinion, as well as committing to be the change I want to see.

To work for a company that seeks to eradicate sexism/racism/heteronormativity in the workplace and beyond.

I commit to being educated on groups that take part in direct action in order to help others find ways to be involved in aspects of current events they feel passionate about.

I develop to fight for gender and racial equality.

I commit to actively listening in conversations across the aisle.

I commit to actively listening in all the conversations I partake in.

Spread awareness for climate change.

Personal Commitments

Work on getting better everyday.

Refusing to wait for LGBTQIA respect. I commit to speaking out against prejudice and bigotry against this community.

I am refusing to wait for our “leaders” to make positive change.

I commit to staying informed.

Refusing to wait for racial justice. I will be an advocate for people who lack a voice.

I am refusing to wait to be well-informed.

Refusing to wait for ignorance. I commit to challenging my friends and classmates to think critically about social issues and to not stand for injustice, especially here on campus.

Refusing to wait for others to tell me what is right and wrong. I commit to educating myself.

I commit to remaining informed about the issues facing the Elon University community, as well as the country. As well as engaging in conversations with those that disagree with me.

I will refuse to let ignorance persist where I can stop it. I commit to promoting analytical conversation with those from different backgrounds from myself.

I commit to remembering that my marginalized experiences are not universal and listening to the experiences of others different than me.

I commit to being aware of my words and think about what I say before I do.

RADICAL TEACHER 100 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.466 Refusing to wait for sexual and gender equality. I commit to working with local social justice orgs to make Alamance County a safer place for LGBTQ community members.

Refusing to wait for rights for immigrants and refugees.

Refusing to wait for criminal justice reform. I commit to educating myself and others about the structural racism in the criminal justice system.

I commit to being aware of the space I take up in conversations and listening to and amplifying the voices of others.

Refusing to wait for human rights.

I am committed to educating myself to see how I can make REAL change.

I commit to call my congresspeople and voice my opinion regarding legislation I want them to vote a certain way for.

Refusing to wait for the marginalized, downtrodden, and wronged in our society to be treated with the same respect as the rich and privileged.

Refusing to wait for others to bring up difficult topics. I can do it too!

Refusing to wait for racial and feminist justice.

I commit to maintaining an open mind when involved in conversation with those whose perspectives differ from my own.

I refuse to wait for political partisanship. I commit to working across political boundaries to find common ground with those around me.

Refusing to wait for political acknowledgement of climate change. I commit to spreading awareness and information surrounding climate change and its harmful effects.

I refuse to remain silent and passive on issues that matter and I refuse to lose faith on evidence-based reasoning.

I refuse to become a “nice white lady” (i.e. a white woman wrapped up in her life and privilege who continues the status quo). I will be challenging and disruptive!

Refusing to wait for human rights for everyone. I commit to continuing the conversation and my education. I commit to lobbying against legislation I disagree with and pursuing my JD.

I commit to being informed and offering informed opinions at all times, not just in times of reaction.

Become more aware of current events through reading and listening to different news sources.

Refusing to wait for equality and acceptance of all minority groups.

Refusing to wait for environmental justice. I commit to educating youth about the environment and climate during my summer internship.

Committed to helping others better understand the importance of the environment.

I refuse to wait for gender equality. I commit to defending equality and refusing to let sexist or stereotypical gender comments “slide.” The everyday rhetoric of how we perceive male and female needs to change.

I refuse to wait for gender equality. I commit to supporting other women and speaking up against injustice.

Refusing to wait for gender equality. I commit to questioning both people and institutions when I see/hear underlying sexism.

Refusing to wait for someone else to start the conversation.

I refuse to wait to have important and necessary conversations. I commit to engaging in difficult conversations with people with whom I disagree/don’t share the same views.

I am refusing to wait for artistic expression. I will seek to use art to communicate my stance on issues.

Refusing to wait for racial justice. I commit to not be silent about issues of race when something happens.

Read multiple news sources.

I will more actively engage in conversations that make social issues that impact my community.

I commit to be informed with fact-checked information.

RADICAL TEACHER 101 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.466 I’m committed to advocating passionately for disability rights.

Explore the intersectionality of issues that I will address in my job.

Question one-sided opinions/comments.

I will stand up and not be afraid to tell people how I feel when I hear things that are racist or hurtful and make sure that they understand that saying such things are wrong and are the opposite of how we want the world to be.

Reading more news sources to gain more information of all sides of the issue at hand.

I commit to informing and lessening the stigma of Islamophobia.

I commit to keeping myself informed and developing more informed, researched, and well-rounded discussion topics.

I refuse to wait for women to be treated as equals in the U.S. I’m committed to educating and demonstrating against sexism.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

This journal is published by the University Library System of the University of Pittsburgh as part of its D-Scribe Digital Publishing Program, and is cosponsored by the University of Pittsburgh Press.

RADICAL TEACHER 102 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.466 ISSN: 1941-0832

Trump, J.K. Rowling, and Confirmation Bias: An Experiential Lesson in Fake News

by Audrey Fisch

PHOTO BY ROMAN KRAFT

RADICAL TEACHER 103 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.481

ike many educators, I wanted to find some way to pseudonyms or vague nicknames and creating an incorporate the issue of fake news into my teaching. atmosphere of relative anonymity. In this sense, students, L Below is an account of my experience which is if they wish, can post their comments with some sense of useful, I think, in terms of its reproducibility but also for confidentially and the resulting written conversation is the lessons it teaches about the intractableness and more inclusive and safe. (The platform also allows the urgency of these issues. Given the ways in which fake instructor immediately to hide any inappropriate news continues to be an issue and what we know about comments, should that become necessary, which was a students’ (and all our) vulnerability to manipulation by the useful feature as I worried about a student revealing the media, I suspect this lesson will continue to have value for backstory behind my lesson, but that never occurred.) a long time. In response to my simple prompt - “post any and all The lesson centers around a news story I came across thoughts,” the students posted comments along the lines that I thought would work well in my classroom. The story of this one: “The boy was trying to get a handshake from had the following selling points: 1) it involved the author Trump. It seems like Trump ignored him.” A few actually J.K. Rowling, a household name to my students, 2) it argued against the title of the video: “the title says that involved clear-cut and indisputable manipulation of the Trump didn’t ignore wheelchair boy but in the video he details of an incident – fake news, 3) it played to my clearly did.” Notice here that my students did not, as I students’ antipathy to Trump and hence their confirmation asked, ignore the video title; the content of the video bias, and 4) it is actually a story in which Trump was not overwhelmed them, and they assumed that the title was the villain I knew they would assume him to be. inaccurate. Many immediately injected negative feelings about Trump into the discussion: “The fact he treated a My lesson was a brief unit in my first semester English handicapped kid like that irritates me”; “That was foul”; Composition class at New Jersey City University (NJCU), a “the boy is disabled . . . that makes it so much worse”; comprehensive, public university. Designated as both an “Absolutely messed up. He has no shame.” Hispanic-serving and a minority-serving institution, NJCU serves a broadly diverse student population: 25% White, Without any further oral discussion, I asked the 21% Black, 34% Hispanic, and 9% Asian. 77% of our students to watch the video again and to offer additional students receive financial aid, with approximately 64% comments on TodaysMeet. The students became receiving Pell Grants. Many are the first in their families to increasingly adamant in their condemnation of Trump: “He attend college. In general, NJCU students are far less likely completely ignored the kid. All he had to do was look down to be Trump supporters and somewhat more likely to be and say hello” and “I honestly cannot stand him.” politically aware than the typical college student. In Next, I shared an excerpt from an article in the particular, Trump’s attacks on DACA students and Washington Examiner: immigrants have resonated painfully with many NJCU students. Someone published the clip from the 13-minute event on YouTube and alleged Trump had ignored 3-year-old The lesson was labeled on my syllabus as Fake News. I Monty's requests for a handshake. The video circulated began with a caution: I asked any students who knew the on Twitter, and caught the attention of Rowling, author “trick” behind my lesson to refrain from speaking out (and of the "Harry Potter" series. I would advise any teachers who reproduce this lesson to do the same). None of the students in my three sections of "Trump imitated a disabled reporter. Now he pretends College Composition, however, was aware of the story, so not to see a child in a wheelchair, as though frightened my caution was unnecessary and none, incredibly enough, he might catch his condition," Rowling said referencing was tipped off by the syllabus. Monty, who has spina bifida, in one of eight tweets transmitted to her 11.4 million followers on Friday, First, I showed my students a brief, 24-second video July 28. clip. I directed the students to ignore the title – “Trump doesn't ignore wheelchair boy - Monty shows Trump his "This monster of narcissism values only himself and secret service patch.” (I will discuss the title below.) The his pale reflections. The disabled, minorities, video shows President Trump greeting a group of people transgender people, the poor, women (unless related standing behind his dais; he chats with them as he exits to him by ties of blood, and therefore his creations) the room. The voice of a small, disabled boy, Monty, is are treated with contempt, because they do not captured on the video, calling out “Mama,” and reaching resemble Trump," she continued. his hand up and towards Trump. In the video clip, Trump "How stunning and how horrible, that Trump cannot does not stop to shake the boy’s hand or engage him in bring himself to shake the hand of a small boy who any way. only wanted to touch the President," the Harry Potter Without any oral discussion, I asked students to post author continued. their responses to the video clip on TodaysMeet – a closed, Thousands, including Chelsea Clinton, retweeted backchannel chat platform that allows students to engage Rowling. (Quinn) in written conversation (Daniels and Daniels). 1 Note: the platform asks students for nicknames when they post, and Again, without any oral discussion, I asked the I let my students enter whatever they want as their students to react in writing on TodaysMeet. Many nicknames, allowing, then, for students to choose responded in agreement with Rowling’s tweets: “Rowling

RADICAL TEACHER 104 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.481 couldn't have put it any better” and “I agree with JK Hence the title for the clip I showed: “Trump doesn't ignore Rowling, I think that was an act of disrespect and wheelchair boy - Monty shows Trump his secret service ignorance.” A few noted and praised the fact that Rowling’s patch.” reaction was informed by the well-known incident in Again, I asked the students to respond, this time to November 2015 in which Trump had disparaged a disabled the video clip in which Trump engages with Monty, and I reporter, Serge F. Kovaleski (Haberman). was surprised by the uniformity with which they blamed Student opinion began to diverge slightly, however, what they called “the media”: “The media tends to crucify not in how to read the video but in relation to Rowling’s Trump, sometimes, unnecessarily”; “This video shows that response. A few students questioned Rowling’s decision to you can't always be quick to make assumptions on things insert herself into the realm of politics: “J.K Rowling needs in the media because they don’t cover the whole story to stick to fiction.” In response to these sorts of comments, sometimes”; and “I'm just saying the media lied to us.” several students defended Rowling’s right to share her Many students at this point labelled the episode: views: “she's allowed to post her opinions just because she “#fakenews.” has a massive following doesn't mean she has to stay I probed the students to unpack their understanding of quiet” and “J.K. Rowling has a strong influence . . . and “the media.” What did they understand the term to mean? speaking out helps the voices those afraid to speak.” In What is J.K. Rowling’s relationship to the media? After all, other words, for many students, Rowling’s authority and she isn’t a journalist. And was she offering news or credibility reinforced their initial reaction to the video; for a opinion? I also asked students to think about the source of few, her credentials as a novelist were insufficient to give the misleading video. Was it posted by a credible news her opinions on the video particular authority. source? Next, I showed the students a second video, entitled The students, however, were not able to process this “Trump Gives a Statement on Healthcare.” We watched the distinction between a personal opinion posted by a person video from timestamp 2:10 until 2:35; Trump is introduced (albeit a celebrity) on social media and a piece of news by Vice President Pence and then enters the room and media. Like Trump, for the students, there was no greets the people standing behind the dais. This video, as distinction to be made between social media and news rapidly became clear to the students, is from the beginning media. One student pointed out the dictionary definition of of the same event to which Rowling had reacted, and it media: “the means of communication, as radio and features the president directly and for a sustained period of television, newspapers, magazines, and the Internet, that time bending down to engage, nearly exclusively, with the reach or influence people widely” (dictionary.com). When I disabled boy, Monty. (The video also includes Trump’s tried to press the students on the difference between Address.) credible, reliable news organizations and other media In fact, the first video I showed my students, the video sources (like a random person who posts video clips of his to which J.K. Rowling had reacted, was an excerpt from the cat on YouTube), they were resistant (which is surely second video, an excerpt which, taken out of the full indicative of how thoroughly discredited the mainstream context, makes it look as if Trump ignored Monty. Indeed, news media has become in our post-truth environment). the brief excerpt, particularly given the fact that we hear Monty calling out to his mother and reaching up his hand as if towards Trump, plays effectively and nearly irresistibly When I tried to press the on our heartstrings. The earlier clip and the full video, students on the difference between however, make clear that President Trump had not ignored credible, reliable news Monty; in fact, he had paid special attention to the boy organizations and other media during his entrance. sources (like a random person who It’s worth noting that both videos seem entirely posts video clips of his cat on credible because they contain video from The White House YouTube), they were resistant official YouTube channel. The first video, the misleading (which is surely indicative of how clip, works to cast Trump in a negative light simply by thoroughly discredited the presenting one moment from the event entirely out of mainstream news media has context. The short clip makes it look as if Trump is become in our post-truth callously ignoring a vocal and engaging young disabled environment). boy; the full video makes clear that Trump engaged the child fully and extensively at the beginning of the event. Researchers are working hard to think through the The misleading clip was edited down and re-posted dangers of an unregulated Internet on which “someone” from the White House channel onto YouTube by someone, can post a misleading video, like that about Trump, and whose identity remains unknown (the original misleading move millions of people and public opinion. In “Evaluating clip has since been removed from YouTube). The clip Information: The Cornerstone of Civic Online Reasoning,” circulated widely, capturing the attention of many, the Stanford History Education Group “worr[ies] that including J.K. Rowling. The video I shared with my democracy is threatened by the ease at which students is a facsimile of what Rowling and others saw. disinformation about civic issues is allowed to spread and

RADICAL TEACHER 105 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.481 flourish” (5). Projects like that at Stanford intend to reaction to the misleading video – including the now- measure and ultimately improve students’ abilities to deleted tweets both from Rowling attacking Trump and “reason about the information on the Internet” (4). My from Monty’s mother in response. They also noticed, across students’ reaction to the Rowling/Trump video, however, the media coverage, the extent of the backlash against makes clear that while we (students, Rowling, all of us) Rowling: “everybody is bashing Rowling for her mistake may be vulnerable to manipulation through unscrupulous and are making it seem like she is a terrible individual.” actors using our vast media channels like YouTube and The students generally found the criticism of Rowling Twitter, many of us have no counterbalancing trust. The disproportionate: “she was one of many to overreact to the danger is that everything out there becomes video so I don’t think she should be bashed for it.” Indeed, undifferentiated, untrustworthy media. I’ll return to this given that they had all fallen for the misleading Trump issue below. video, they were more generous towards Rowling than others in the media were.

In my classroom, one student Finally, we listened to a brief discussion on WNYC’s On was more nuanced in his/her/their the Media with Melissa Zimdars, a professor at Merrimack analysis of the Rowling/Trump College, about how to navigate a world of fake news. In particular, the discussion raised the important issue of episode. The student noted, “This is confirmation bias, the idea that we are all more likely to a prime example of what’s wrong believe those stories that confirm our existing ideas. My with the Internet. Everyone is an classroom experiment had relied on and exposed that expert, and does no research into confirmation bias in my students. The students, many of their misguided opinions.” whom are immigrants and/or students of color, were already disinclined to support Trump; this confirmation bias meant they were more likely to accept the misleading In my classroom, one student was more nuanced in video of his seemingly boorish behavior towards a disabled his/her/their analysis of the Rowling/Trump episode. The child as confirmation of Trump’s heartlessness and student noted, “This is a prime example of what’s wrong arrogance. (I did have one avowed Trump supporter in one with the Internet. Everyone is an expert, and does no of my sections, but unfortunately, he was absent on the research into their misguided opinions.” This student day of this lesson. It would have been fascinating to see continued, “I know for a fact she [Rowling] didn't take the how his presence affected the way the lesson played out.) 30 seconds [to look] into YouTube to look up the full video.” Having personally experienced being “duped,” the students were primed to listen carefully to the suggestions This student wanted to claim superiority to Rowling Zimdars offers about avoiding fake news. As the students and her insufficient research and misguided reaction. But remarked, “it is the first time I felt duped”; “Well I feel lied was that superiority justified? I had forced all of my to . . . and now I'm definitely going to overthink anything I students to react to the misleading video, and none of see on the internet”; and “They got me.” Fake news was them had raised any questions, even given the title of the no longer an abstraction; the lesson had allowed my video and the title of our lesson on my syllabus. At this students to experience personally their vulnerability. point, I pointed out that none of the students themselves had shown suspicion about the video, and that they too Indeed, the issue of our broad vulnerability to this kind had felt confident enough to condemn Trump and the of manipulation arose at the end of the period in one of my episode based on what they had seen (and on their own three sections. One student raised the issue of Russian views about Trump). Indeed, my lesson was based on the meddling in the 2016 presidential election and quite power of this experience. It’s one thing to read about and astutely argued that the “Russians only fed Americans condemn Rowling’s mistake; my goal was to simulate her what they wanted to see and hear. [I]t is the fault of mistake in the classroom so that my students could Americans for believing everything they see or hear.” My experience being duped just like the esteemed author of classroom experiment, in fact, was taking place just as Harry Potter had been. developments were breaking in The New York Times and elsewhere about the Russian Facebook ads designed to I continued the lesson with a discussion of the ensuing provoke and divide the American public and disrupt the events, including a response from Monty’s mother and her election. Some students were well aware of the information explanation that, among other things, the boy was raising surfacing about Russian interference, and a few connected his arm not to shake Trump’s hand but to show the secret this foul play on Facebook to the Trump/Rowling episode. service patch he had been given earlier that day. We also One student raised the question of who had uploaded the read Rowling’s apology. misleading Trump video and to what purpose: “I do feel Next, we turned to media coverage of the Rowling that whoever uploaded this video was trying to get a rise.” tweetstorm incident. I offered students a range of sources Another student noted that Rowling was simply the victim across the political spectrum to review – CNN, The Daily who “fell for the trap.” Telegraph, Politifact, and The Washington Post - and Who laid the trap and for what purpose are questions encouraged them to seek out others on their own. They that the news coverage of the Rowling/Trump incident did noticed how thoroughly the media covered Rowling’s

RADICAL TEACHER 106 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.481 not address. One particularly conspiracy-minded student skepticism, and broad distrust of expertise and authority of suggested that Trump supporters might have been behind our moment, our task must be to pair an understanding of the doctored video. His logic: ensnare a liberal celebrity in the dangers of confirmation bias and fake news with skill- a trap, get her to bash Trump unfairly, and then discredit building so that our students are empowered to serve as and humiliate her for her mistake. The end result is more their own arbiters of the truth, confident in their abilities to distrust in the media. Such far-out conspiracy theories are wield the powerful, existing “tools for trust” (Caulfield harder to dismiss in the wake of what we have learned “Think”). Caulfield suggests “concrete strategies and tactics about the Russians. for tracing claims to sources and for analyzing the nature and reliability of those sources” (Web 3). The web, he I mentioned earlier how insistently students conflated argues as he outlines the fact-checking moves in his book, social media and media. In class, I pointed out to my is not just the “largest propaganda machine ever created students the fact that the individual (or organization) who [it is also] the most amazing fact-checking tool even posted the original video was not a credible, if left-slanting invented” (Web 3). news organization, like The New York Times (although we don’t know who it is who actually posted the video). But for I look forward to teaching the Trump/Rowling episode the students, there was no distinction to be made between again but this time as part of broader practice in material posted on the web by malicious individuals and distinguishing the fake and the real, including verification material posted by what we might call the reliable, if of real but dubious-sounding news items (news items that sometimes biased, news media. All of it, for them, was the appear fake but are in fact real). With this practice, I hope media, and all of it was untrustworthy. my students will move past a position of dangerous and potentially disabling cynicism and into a position of I fear that my lesson, like Trump’s endless repetition strength as empowered arbiters, wielding the power of of the terms “fake news” and “fake media,” served to fact-checking tools, in order to verify or debunk what they further my students’ distrust of the media and not in a see in “the media.” Teaching students the tools of digital healthy or productive way. My goal had been to allow them fact checking may be a lot to take on in a first semester to experience fake news, to understand their vulnerability college writing course, but surely this kind of digital literacy to it, and to arm them with strategies to avoid it. I also is precisely the appropriate and required learning outcome hoped they would acknowledge the ways in which the for today’s educated citizens. mainstream news media’s coverage of the Trump/Rowling episode was different from the manipulation they had experienced with the misleading video, which was wholly Notes fake news. Indeed, comparing the different media responses to the episode, the students were able to reflect 1 TodaysMeet closed as of June 2018. on the relative bias or slant among the different Backchannelchat.com seems comparable. mainstream media outlets; they were also able to notice how different in scale this bias was in comparison to the entirely false agenda perpetrated by whoever posted the misleading video clip. Works Cited

I did not, however, at least within the context of this “Breaking News Consumer’s Handbook: Fake News lesson, get my students to view the news media as Edition.” On the Media, WNYC, 18 Nov. 2016. trustworthy, despite what they acknowledged about the Caulfield, Mike. “Think Like a Fact Checker: A New thorough, well-documented coverage the Rowling/Trump Approach to Information Literacy.” OLC Innovate 2018: episode received in the mainstream media. In the end, the Education Reimagined; Annual Conference of the Online Trump video, Rowling’s knee-jerk response to it, the Learning Consortium; Nashville, TN; April 2018. ensuing media frenzy, and then my lesson about these Unpublished conference paper. texts resulted in an overall heightening of distrust in all ___. Web Literacy for Student Fact-Checkers. Pressbooks media – even what we see with our own eyes can’t be (Open Access), 2017, trusted. I may have turned my students from “gullible https://webliteracy.pressbooks.com/. rubes” into “gullible cynics” (Caulfield “Think”), for whom Daniels, Harvey “Smokey” A., and Elaine Daniels. The nothing is true. That skepticism of my students, Best-Kept Teaching Secret: How Written Conversations engendered through some instructional trickery on my Engage Kids, Activate Learning, Grow Fluent Writers. part, is, I think, a dangerous outcome. Corwin, 2013. Especially given the ways in which the Trump era has Darcy, Oliver. “J.K. Rowling apologizes for falsely accusing continued to demean the work of legitimate news Trump of ignoring boy in wheelchair.” CNN, 1 Aug. 2017. organizations and to erode our trust in and ability to Gillin, Joshua. “J.K. Rowling falsely accuses Trump of not discern truth and facts from disinformation and blatant shaking disabled boy's hand.” PolitiFact, 31 July 2017. falsehoods, it is critical that lessons like mine be supplemented by the kinds of concrete strategies Michael Haberman, Maggie. “Donald Trump Says His Mocking of New York Times Reporter Was Misread.” The New York Caulfield outlines in his brilliant and important book, Web Times, 26 Nov. 2015. Literacy for Student Fact-Checkers. Given the cynicism,

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Horton, Alex. “J.K. Rowling ripped Trump for slighting a Stanford History Education Group. “Evaluating Information: boy in a wheelchair. But she got the story wrong.” The The Cornerstone of Civic Online Reasoning.” 22 Nov. Washington Post, 1 Aug. 2017. 2016, https://stacks.stanford.edu/file/druid:fv751yt5934/SHEG Horton, Helena. “JK Rowling apologises for claiming Donald %20Evaluating%20Information%20Online.pdf. Trump refused to shake disabled boy's hand.” The Telegraph, 1 Aug. 2017. “Trump doesn't ignore wheelchair boy - Monty shows Trump his secret service patch.” YouTube. 28 Jul. 2017, Quinn, Melissa. “How one mom got caught in a 'fake news' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpWwIw_jX8g&featu battle involving J.K. Rowling and Donald Trump.” The re=youtu.be. Washington Examiner, 5 Aug. 2017. “Trump Gives a Statement on Healthcare.” YouTube. 24 “Media.” Dictionary.com. Jul. 2017, Shane, Scott. “These Are the Ads Russia Bought on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0u34c9orMc&featur Facebook in 2016.” The New York Times, 1 Nov. 2017. e=youtu.be.

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Making a RUCCAS or How is an Urban Community Change Axis like a Writing Desk?

by Hannah Ashley and Katie Solic

YES ALUMNI, STUDENTS AND PROFS AT THE FREE MINDS, FREE PEOPLE IN BALTIMORE, MARYLAND, IN JULY OF 2017. (LEFT TO RIGHT) KHALIL SUARAY, DR. HANNAH ASHLEY, AKINRINSOLA SOLEBO, MIKHI WOODS, DR. LAQUANA COOKE, JESSICA AMARANT, NORMA MONESTINO-FUENTES, OLIVIA CAMPBELL, JALYSE THOMAS, LILAH SABER AND NAKYNA GARFIELD-DESPHY

RADICAL TEACHER 109 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.519

How is a raven like a writing desk? Lewis Carroll has education, implies a break from hierarchical the Mad Hatter ask Alice. Spoiler alert: there is no answer. governance/top-down decision-handing/divested and It was originally written as nonsense. If there has ever disconnected perspectives on communities and their been a time when we as educators must swim through schools. This is the raucous ruckus – working alongside noise and madness (whether authentic or put on for communities, en mass, authentically balancing a multitude political purposes), this era is it. As Kurt Anderson (2017) of needs and values and placing democratic participation at captures it, we have become a country which disdains “the the center of educating educators. Based on our reality-based community,” which prefers “truthiness”—the experience, we think radical educators at all levels can lead feel of authenticity, without all the inconvenience of actual colleges of education and all institutions of learning toward facts. Anderson describes our descent into madness as this alternate logic, and we are building that plane as we foundering into the depths on the 1960’s left- fly it in our region. counterculture, followed by the academic left’s Foucauldian deconstruction of knowledge, then capitalized on by the right-wing media (as well as leftish Oprah-like wishing our The challenge to the current worlds into being), social media and the bots that love it, neoliberal regime, especially from a the Christian Right—and voila: here we are at the Mad Tea college of education, implies a Party. break from hierarchical

The Mad Tea party is the (un)logic that continues out governance/top-down decision- and past the far end of market-based logic. As Rapheal handing/divested and disconnected Randall, director of Youth United for Change, one of our perspectives on communities and long-time RUCCAS collaborators, pointed out recently at a their schools. conference, we are probably witnessing the end of commodity/colonial/racial capitalism. There simply are RUCCAS is named after our native son Bayard Rustin almost no more markets to which the global economy can (born and raised in West Chester, Pennsylvania). Rustin expand. So they must contract, and with that, there will was a prominent organizer in the civil rights movement, a be consolidations of power and resource. But it is spokesperson for nonviolent social justice movements, and imperative that those who will lose out not notice as the an artist; he is often referred to as the architect of the contraction occurs; it is essential that the masses stay 1963 March on Washington, although he often took a back confused. We need not describe our current President’s seat to others because of being an out gay Black man in Mad Hatter “Make American Great Again” hat and the the 1950’s and 60’s. delusions and lies and magical thinking that he has tuned into and amplified. Rustin is a role model for us in several ways. First, he managed to coordinate thousands of people and hundreds We are not shocked (ok, we were shocked, but we are of groups by showing up where the people were, by word over that now). Of course the king of the Mad Tea party is of mouth, by phone and index cards—and doing the hard, mad. But how do we help ourselves and the youth and sometimes boring, but ultimately rewarding work of others with whom we partner to name and analyze the figuring out details, following up, and connecting with world with the Mad Tea party happening all around us, others to develop shared understandings and make things louder and louder? Organize, teach organizing, lead with happen. So when it feels like (or we are told), Well, the others on teaching organizing. It is not an antidote, but it College of Ed just doesn’t have the time/resources to work is a counter-logic. The logic of democratic participation is with the community; we already work with schools and the counter to the logic/not logic of the market. It is slow, that’s hard enough, it’s good to remember: March on messy, inefficient, and real. Washington without a single computer. Secondly, he lived We need our own not-mad (but maybe angry) party, a his intersectional reality—always Black, always gay—and reality-based one, an organized one, and so we made one. yet made decisions based on his best thinking about how We have started to make a RUCCAS, the Rustin Urban his mind and voice could best have an influence on the Community Change Axis. We propose that universities-- world in that moment. Sometimes that meant staying in particularly but not exclusively colleges of education--join the background and leading from behind. We (two White with national and local movements to resist, and to women, one of us with bi-racial children, another of us reconstruct the democratic social compact. And we mean queer and Jewish) are not suggesting people remain something different than the neoliberal calls for civic closeted or that our analyses can be race-neutral. Rather, responsibility (see, for example, the American Association in a race-toxic country that has flourished based on racial of State Colleges and University’s recent lead address, capitalism (Robinson, 1983) since its inception, it seems “Can Higher Education Recapture the Elusive American important for universities to lead from behind and for Dream?”). White folks to step up our labor and back the creation of organizations with the lived realities of people of Color Producing and being educator-organizers, in our time front and center, with a clear understanding of history and especially, can’t be done “sensibly,” following tradition and power, with the active leadership of many but without with civility. It needs to be raucous; we need to make a essentializing or freezing up because we might be criticized ruckus, which traditional education, particularly colleges of (this article, for example, is with permission based on a education, is not used to doing. The challenge to the presentation drafted by several others who don’t share our current neoliberal regime, especially from a college of

RADICAL TEACHER 110 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.519 racial, socioeconomic background, and other lived support in continuing to fight those fights. We are new as experiences). an entity, so those pathways and support mechanisms are still in development, but below we will discuss some of the RUCCAS was founded in 2016 but its components grew rationales for our existence and a few interconnections in the years of liberal Obama-era stasis and conservative already occurring among member programs. Although push-back. Before we started calling ourselves RUCCAS, RUCCAS is not housed in college of ed, these our dean provided funds to support the formulation of an interconnections are having a growing, though admittedly “urban strategy” to have a positive effect in the urban ad hoc, imperfect and improvisational, impact on our communities with which we worked, but did not explicitly education programs and work in the region. ask us to work with those communities to formulate it. Truth be told, the College was likely expecting a bringing together and coordinating of our various programs, Q: When a university “disses” you, what including the previous, disparate work of some of us on this article, and originally only involving university faculty do you get? A: A disposition. in the conversation. However, while sewing together One political and historical rationale that makes sense various field placements, courses, and extracurricular to college of education administrators is self-defense. projects may result in more coherent urban education Harvey Kantor (2017), reminds us that around the time of programming, it is not a coherent strategy for community the Great Society, Americans gave up on solving inequality change. directly. Instead, we hung our hats on education. We knew that the answers didn’t reside entirely in our Sometime in the 1960’s our country gave up on solving state-school ivory tower. So we occupied the request for a housing, health, socio-economic, and racial injustice per strategy, and brought together allies--including students, se, and put all our eggs in the basket of education, ”the community organization leaders, staff and faculty--to great equalizer.” Educators of every political stripe know figure out what seemed to be lacking in urban community the impossibility of this cultural myth quite well. It’s change work in our region, and what our university could truthy, but not truth. But in response to what became a do to fill that gap. Ultimately--and one of the points of this regular assault on us as educators for failing in every article is to argue that--while the College of Education was conceivable way, we decided to no longer just be and is very supportive of the vision and mission that responsible for “educating youth,” but to be the everything emerged, RUCCAS couldn’t quite fit in among the to everyone. The movements are as varied as requirements of accreditation, assessment and budget in a standardized testing, (surface-level) parent involvement, college of education. “no excuses” education, and university-community engagement. Some of these “innovations” work, to a RUCCAS is a university-community center whose degree, in some contexts, for a few. mission is to support the building of power for Southeastern PA metropolitan communities, specifically but not exclusively Global Majority/communities of color and Higher education is full of low-income urban communities, through providing together pockets of critique of the neoliberal, new and mid-career urban community change but we have not been at the professionals-- particularly urban youth workers, artists, forefront of the dirty, on-the- and cross-sector racial and economic justice workers-- ground fights to take back our credential-bearing educational pathways and supportive, schools. healing spaces and opportunities for renewal. It doesn’t sound much like a college of education mission. Yet. Barbara Ferman and co-authors (2017), in their new RUCCAS is now housed and supported by our College collection, The Fight for America’s Schools: Grassroots of Interdisciplinary Studies at WCU. The vision of RUCCAS, Organizing in Education, articulate education’s recent path, created by its members, is to have community and with its market-based DeVos logic of “choice” and collective impact: a sustainable hub for “urban change- “accountability.” They also provide some countering case makers,” an enduring and robust institution that studies of democratic engagement of teachers, students, authentically and mutually meets the needs of multiple communities, and organizations that have pushed back on WCU entities and Philadelphia neighborhoods and this “apparently logical system” (7), a system that, like the organizations, where a deeply multiracial and cross-class Mad Tea party when each attendee shifts down one seat, alliance of youth and adults with a multiplicity of only gives a clean cup to the person at the head of the line. professional expertise and lived experiences engage in What is notable in Ferman et al’s narrative is the practices to further develop their own and each other’s conspicuous absence of higher education and colleges of abilities to leverage assets and resources in and outside education in particular. This gap is not because individuals the community to cultivate security and vibrancy, trust and and centers housed at universities don’t focus their relationship, and equity and power. RUCCAS is composed research or advocacy on public education--they do. But of member organizations that share a commitment to higher education writ large has been docilely following or creating educational pathways for urban community even supporting the logic of “racing to the top” along with change-makers, including but not exclusively teacher think-tankers and Gates-Zuckerbergs, rather than leading educators, and of people who themselves are already alongside their activist grassroots constituents. Higher urban community change-makers and are looking for education is full of pockets of critique of the neoliberal, but

RADICAL TEACHER 111 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.519 we have not been at the forefront of the dirty, on-the- Knock knock. Who’s there? Ink. Ink ground fights to take back our schools. In our own self- interest we must move from education grounded in the who? Incubator context of community to being leaders with community in In partnership with these Philadelphia educator- community change. Supporting pathways for community activist-organizer communities, RUCCAS-affiliated change agents is not extra; it’s mission. organizations have started to coalesce around a logic of A second rationale for the essential nature of this type democratic participation and practices. This coming of coalition work, despite it seeming “off-mission” for together is offering an important sense of identity colleges of education, is that the logic of democratic grounded in an essential set of dispositions for our time. As participation is a dispositional and structural counter to the involved faculty and students, we share a commitment to mad-market (un)logic in which education functions. The do the messy work, on the ground, within the communities educational context in which we founded RUCCAS and the we are working to fortify, sometimes leading, but more groups that are its members is the city of Philadelphia. often listening, learning, and backing. And by recognizing Philly represents a microcosm of the challenges that face and naming our shared counter-logic, by linking our many school systems in urban centers, and the “solutions” democratic participatory practices, and by leveraging our that have followed the market logics. The eighth largest individual relationships and resources, we are building our school district in the United States, with over 202,500 not-mad tea party to be “incubating and sustaining” students in 339 schools, faces intractable and persistent (Ritchie, 2012) for one another. issues, including the largest (and highly racialized) state-level school spending gap between rich and poor districts in the country (Mosankis, 2017), and deep budget cuts that have both increased class size and reduced critical staff in positions such as nurses, counselors, librarians, let alone ignored crises such as lead and asbestos in schools. In turn, trends toward standardization and privatization have resulted in the adoption of scripted curricula and top-down professional development, as well as schools being labeled as “failing” and subsequently being closed, re-staffed, or converted to charter schools, all of which is disproportionately impacting low income communities and communities of color (Buras, 2011; Lipman, 2011).

At the same time colleges of education continue to prepare preservice teachers SCHOOL FUNDING DEMONSTRATION who are overwhelmingly white (Milner, 2006; One of those member organizations is the Youth 2010; Sleeter, 2001), have limited experience in Empowerment and Urban Studies (YES) program, which participating in cross-racial and cross-cultural relationships Hannah co-founded and currently directs. Another is the (Keengwe, 2010), and bring with them deficit perspectives WCU Urban Education Fellowship (UEF), which Katie co- and discourses about urban schools, communities, and founded and currently co-directs. Our colleagues who students (Amos, 2011; Groff & Peters, 2012; Lazar, 2007). drafted an early presentation on which this article is based This, on the whole, has been true of our own university, are faculty or staff affiliated with RUCCAS, including Kyra, West Chester, part of the State System of Higher who is long-time staff at a community organization called Education, and a former normal school at which a great Need in Deed; Bernard, who teaches in YES and runs a many of our students are pre-service or in-service poetry club for youth in Coatesville, PA; and Kathleen, who teachers, so our education programs are integral to the teaches in YES and co-founded and co-directs UEF with entire university. Katie. Each of these separate projects (and we represent However, sitting at the nexus of the Philadelphia just some of the moving parts of RUCCAS) are based on education context and the lived experience gap between K- practices of democratic participation. Together, they 12 youth and many of our preservice teachers lies a reinforce a counter-logic to the (un)logic of the mad longstanding, rich, and vibrant local educator activist market, not through classroom-based critique but through community, including both groups that have formed and on-the-ground community. pushed back on the neoliberal education agenda, and individual community members and university faculty who have worked in this area. Some of this work is profiled, in fact, in Ferman et al’s book and in other research (see, for example Stern and Brown, 2016).

RADICAL TEACHER 112 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.519 Youth Empowerment and Urban Studies and parents around racist, classist and adultist practices that they experience daily at their schools. Another YES YES was founded in 2011-2012 as an interdisciplinary, 300 student, a man in recovery, mentored a young woman community-engaged academic minor open to all majors through her senior project on addiction, which she herself with a particular focus on helping to prepare urban was facing. Some YES 301 students are placed with the educators. WCU, partnering with the School District of media program at a school for pushed out youth, where Philadelphia, obtained a mini-grant from AASCU they have produced videos on police violence or bullying. (Association of State Colleges and Universities) in 2009 Others serve as near-peer mentors at our locally-grown which spurred its development. RUCCAS currently houses social justice/media “iCAMP.” YES, and its mission is “to amplify through study and Others don’t work out so well. Two recent YES 300 action a critical understanding of the role youth can play in students worked with a weak student government social change in Philadelphia.” Like many community-based organization at a Philadelphia charter high school (one was programs, one goal of YES is to contribute to making real herself a former student there) to try moving them to be a community-based change in our local urban areas, but a stronger and more social-action oriented group. Though more central goal is to develop “change-makers.” the partnership was developed by request of the school Students take a three-course core sequence, and three principal, staffing changes, cancellations, and lack of more directed electives. The intro course, YES 250, moves support meant that students sometimes drove an hour to students to reconceptualize “what is urban” (our students find an empty room, and real movement was limited. who grew up in urban areas need this work as much as Some teachers or staffers are delighted to accept students their suburban counterparts), consider the operations of to work with them when we schedule in the fall, but by personal, interpersonal and institutional “-isms,” and begin spring they seem challenged to figure out how to have to form connections as a cohort through “youth worker WCU students be active participants in their organizations resource groups.” The next two courses are field-based. or classes. PSSA’s, winter weather and lockdowns YES 300 includes theories of Freire, Gramsci and others sometimes keep students from being able to easily meet that are made concrete by reading about strategies even the very minimal number of field hours required (20 ranging from Youth Participatory Action Research to youth in YES 300 and 30 in YES 301). organizing, while students are in weekly field with one of our over a dozen community partners. In our capstone, While students enroll in YES voluntarily, they YES 301: Seminar in Youth-Led Media, students learn sometimes complain about field requirements that are an practical skills of video, podcasting and gaming in the hour away from campus, especially when a number of context of field work at critical urban youth media them have field work for their Social Work, Teacher organizations. Education, Psychology, Criminal Justice (etc.) majors. Disproportionate numbers of our students are themselves from impoverished backgrounds and struggle with the The intro course, YES 250, demands of multiple jobs, being parents or guardians of moves students to reconceptualize children, having families threatened by deportation, or “what is urban” (our students who never having had the academic supports to read critically grew up in urban areas need this and write in the dialect of the academy. Nearly all students work as much as their suburban start out with top-down, “servicey” approaches to their counterparts), consider the field work, ranging from real savior complexes to knee-jerk operations of personal, adultist solutions to “the kids are just always on their interpersonal and institutional “- phones”—many of which shift, but slowly, through the isms,” and begin to form praxis. Reading is never enough; practice is never enough. connections as a cohort through It is essential that those happen recursively. “youth worker resource groups”. So caveats and challenges abound. But interest in the YES minor from students and community organizations has been exciting. We have graduated about twenty-five Our partner organizations vary in mission and practice. alumni, and currently have over sixty minors, one of the For example, one is a youth-led organizing project, another most successful interdisciplinary minors on campus. While a teacher development program rooted in Freirian service- WCU is a predominantly White institution (about 75% of learning, while a third has a stated mission to support very our students are White), over half of YES students are of concrete traditional objectives, such as tutoring and college the Global Majority, primarily Black and Latino students, a access; some are community centers and YMCA’s; others racial balance completely unmatched in any other large are arts- and media-based, and a few are now based on academic program on main campus. About one in three organizing on campus. Through sharing in class their are teacher education candidates. Nearly all of those struggles and successes in field, YES students experience a students identify as leaders or say that they want to make variety of strength-based responses to the needs of urban a difference, though many are not sure how, when they youth and communities. arrive in our minor. Some of the field placements work out extremely well, When they leave, however, many say they are in the immediate sense of contributing to the actual changed. One student, a woman who already runs her community. Recent YES 300 students have led teens at a own mentoring project in the City of Philadelphia, recently community center to sponsor a town hall for their teachers

RADICAL TEACHER 113 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.519 told us that because of her coursework in YES, she is society. YES has given me tools and experience completely revamping her programming. YES students are to counteract these issues and given me hope that actively sought after for internships and jobs in the region. in my career I will be able to make further They often go through as a partial cohort, so they are changes…to the systems that oppress so many influencing each other toward new dispositions and communities of color. –N. identifications over several years. We believe that the “incubation” of selves that happens in the space of a These students who articulate the counter-logic of coherent minor simply could not take root as deeply in a democratic participation are our posse. They hang out in single course. Further, we believe that the emphasis on a the YES office. They asked us to create a major and a collective mindset toward action and hope, rather than master’s track in Urban Community Change, which we are merely critique (which our students report makes them feel working on. YES--and now the wider entity of RUCCAS--is depressed and withdrawn) is central to the successes so becoming a place where students who want radical change far. Here is some of what we hear from YES students: find identity, find a “reality-based community” that is also hopeful, determined, infused with a counter-logic of the Over the last three years, the YES program has possibilities of democratic participation. These students been the most empowering, challenging, and and others like them are not quite as swept up in the inviting learning space on campus to me. The YES madness of a disintegrating and racially-stratified market program truly does "create change"—in students, system because they have a counter-identity and a communities, and in the campus climate here at countering set of essential dispositions. They have hats of West Chester University. –O. their own. And while the theory they learn in classes matters, what matters equally is participation alongside The best part of my time at West Chester was community leaders (including youth leaders), and each becoming a YES minor. Through this minor I was other, and us, on the ground. Many of these students are not only awakened to the many everyday now our colleagues in the region; they supervise our YES disadvantages of youth but to my true calling in field students; they are running organizations working with life, to work beside these youth and make urban youth and communities, in schools and elsewhere, incremental change within diverse communities, in with a very different perspective than the ones they started particular my own. Growing up as an inner-city with. youth I honestly didn’t think that this minor could shed any light on much of anything for me. I was sure that I was very much aware of the Urban Education Fellowship unfavorable disparities that hindered minorities, The Urban Education Fellowship (UEF) was founded in much like myself...I was happily mistaken...I 2014-2015 as an extracurricular enrichment program for quickly discovered that I was learning more than I undergraduate preservice teachers. With year-to-year imagined, that the disadvantages that surround financial support from our College of Ed dean, fellows my community could be changed if I was spend a semester interacting with partner networks of committed to changing them. –D. activist-organizer in-service Philadelphia teachers, including the Teacher Action Group (TAG) Philadelphia and When you show up consistently in a youth- the Caucus of Working Educators (WE). Most importantly, dominated space, encourage student voice, and we believe, these engagements occur outside the context explore relevant issues, you are teaching with of schools and classrooms, taking preservice teachers to advocacy and love... As teachers, there is no way the community spaces in which practicing teachers are to work impartially. So, since we must be biased, doing social change work alongside young people and we have a responsibility to be biased towards our community leaders. Fellows attend two day-long students. We must come alongside youth in the professional conferences, including the annual Education spirit of advocacy and act as respectful allies for Liberation conference hosted by TAG, two teacher instead of standard authority figures. We must lay inquiry community meetings of either TAG Inquiry to Action down our systemic power every single time we Group (ItAGs) or the Philadelphia Teachers’ Learning walk through the doors of our schools, because Cooperative, and six meetings with one another on our our students do not have the option to lay down campus to prepare for, reflect upon, and critically analyze their systemic oppression. In doing so, we open each experience. up space for young people to discover their skills and create an environment where they can learn The intentional focus on groups of teacher organizers to live in advocacy, as well... So, to my beautiful, operating collectively in community spaces is a bright, and brilliant students—past, present, and transformational experience for our preservice teachers. In future, No matter what happens, I will still show their teacher education programs, interactions with up. But I promise you, I will do so, so much practicing teachers are primarily limited to those with more. Love, Miss Jess. –J. single mentor teachers and always focused on the work and professional life within the walls of a classroom— The YES Program…gave me a space to discuss necessary, but perhaps not sufficient in an urban teaching social justice. People need to talk about the life. In UEF, the invitation to participate in the networks consequences of the biased systems in our and the organizations, and to take up and embody the

RADICAL TEACHER 114 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.519 existing norms of democratic community engagement is moment [they feel uncomfortable]? Racism is not the mentoring. Even more profound, our mostly white okay, it hurts people in so many ways that we preservice teachers are challenged to re-think and give up don’t realize. We don’t even realize ourselves. their initial savior mentalities or their individualistic orientation to be the one who alone will make the change. As Khalil indicates, a key insight that supports fellows Instead, many for the first time get a first-hand look into in actively taking up issues of equity and justice (including the power, the resources, and the collective action already systemic racism), is learning to accept and embrace existing in the community. This re-centers their discomfort, the need for ongoing learning, and a lack of perspective from individual actors to incoming members of permanent resolution in the struggle. After the TAG a movement to which they already belong and can conference the following year, Nate (who became a YES contribute. minor) explained how the experience fundamentally shifted his visions around being a teacher: As co-directors and practitioner researchers (Kathleen and Katie), we have been formally studying what happens I think probably before the fellowship I didn’t in the fellowship, identifying ways in which fellows think much about what teacher enrichment, experience the program as a transformative learning personal enrichment really looked like. And to see experience (Mezirow, 1997). Fellows grow through the what it can look like was really powerful. I guess processes of encountering new perspectives (most when I thought about that, I would think of powerfully those of youth and people of the Global inservice meetings with some guy in a suit or Majority) that create chances to critically “re-read” their something but the TAG conference was really worldviews; of grappling with the tensions of returning to beautiful. Teaching can be, or should be, like a their home communities and peer and family relationships folk movement rather than like a sterile with heightened levels of consciousness around social indoctrination. To see teachers as active inequities, white supremacy, institutional racism, and community members, involved stakeholders, or systemic oppression; of feeling a strong desire to know partners is definitely an important way to see more about the inquiries that they had begun during the teachers, I think. A lot of people think of teachers program. In addition, fellows noted the extensive new as teaching and going home but I think the work learning that they had done related to understanding is far beyond the confines of the school. The issues of race and racism and to practicing their racial Fellowship definitely added that perspective. literacies (Stevenson, 2014). (emphasis added) As an extracurricular program, we run into many roadblocks that impede our students from fully engaging We frequently see fellows enter the program either with these transformational experiences. Our preservice already pursuing the YES minor program or deciding to teachers have tightly prescribed course sequences that pursue it. We also see fellows who leave us and seek out entail multiple semesters of high credit loads. Many are field experience course sections that they informally know working significant numbers of hours at jobs as well. It is offer urban placements or formally declare their intention not uncommon for a student to commit to participation in to student teach in the School District of Philadelphia, a the fellowship in December, only to acknowledge that they placement into which students must opt. Eighteen of our are overextended and withdraw from the program in current twenty-six fellow alumni are moving forward on an March. Working with grassroots organizations sometimes urban teaching career pathway, with six alumni teaching or means that scheduling information is not available far in working with youth in the City of Philadelphia, six alumni advance, or can change at the last minute, with the teaching in schools in other low-income communities with schedules of groups of practicing teachers not always racially diverse student bodies, three alumni student aligning well with the availability of college students. teaching in the School District of Philadelphia, and three Sometimes fellows show signs of having experienced initial more advancing into their upper level course and field work shifts in their thinking, and then the program ends and with intentions to do so. Most exciting to us, our program they shift back to previous perspectives. alumni in the City of Philadelphia are now becoming active participants of the teacher networks and organizations that We are seeing evidence, however, that fellows who are they first encountered in UEF. able to participate deeply for the duration of the program are taking up reframed worldviews and heightened senses As is clear from the above examples, our of mission, and beginning to raise their voices in pursuit of interdisciplinary community of learner-teacher-change- democratic engagement towards equity and justice. After makers has the added bonus of deepening student attending a TAG conference with the theme #Black Lives engagement in education and aiding teacher recruitment Matter: Centering Racial Justice in Our Fight for Public and retention (which is at crisis levels), including students Education, Khalil (also a YES minor), shared with his peers: and teachers of the Global Majority (teachers and students of color), though we do not believe that having more And for us to get awareness about this, I feel like teachers of the Global Majority is a panacea or what ails us we need to speak about it. And we need to say, or should even be a central aim. If it happens, that’s you know, “that is not okay.” Even if it is going to probably all to the good (for example, Khalil was a Psych make someone uncomfortable. Who cares? major and now is a new dean of students at an elementary Because, they’ll be okay. Who cares if, for the school), but more important is our orientation toward

RADICAL TEACHER 115 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.519 education and youth work being informed by a collective Brown (2016), writing about teachers in WE and TAG, with logic of democratic engagement, a logic that is equal parts whom UEF collaborates, note, “Activist knowledge, skills and dispositions that reach in hope and educators...ameliorate the anguish of their condition by anger toward shared, if temporary, democratic decisions to collectively naming, critiquing, and acting upon their world” act. This messy slow real goal is what colleges of (17). We can’t keep up with the fake news that gets education must take on: education, as Nate put it, as a folk thrown at us on a more than daily basis; we need an movement. overall counter-logic to keep ourselves sane and moving forward in connection with each other. When enough of us A RUCCAS is not like a writing desk; it is like a share a commitment to the collective counter-logic collective impact party. Or an incubator. Or a folk developed on the ground, in authentic relation to each movement. Or a democracy. The interrelationships other, our accrediting bodies and budget offices might between RUCCAS member organizations make sense to our shrug and follow. WCU students, and they move within and across and beyond our individual courses and projects and community We think it’s time to call for leadership. In fact, if we programs, sometimes creating bridges to new accept the role that the liberal society has placed on us, we partnerships. They may not explicitly name the shared can appropriate some of-the-moment language and call thread of the logic of democratic participation as the tie ourselves “collective impact organizations.” Collective that binds their interests and commitments, but they know impact organizations are meant to solve complex problems that they benefit from and feel energized by the chance to that cannot be addressed through separate efforts. The do the hard, connected, deeply personal work and that it Mad Tea party is one such complex problem. We don’t matters to be able to feel a part of something larger than know that it has a solution so much as it has different oneself. It turns out that this is true of those of us leading paths to resolution. Some of those paths look almost RUCCAS-affiliated entities too. apocalyptic; some look equitable, just, exciting and “reality-based.” Additionally, our experience has been that as we work together with organizations, even those not now staffed Colleges of education must be accomplices to their with a YES or UEF alum or two, we influence each other base constituencies: youth, families, communities, toward greater democratic possibilities. For example, a teachers. We must not keep doing the same thing over more traditional and successful tutoring-mentoring and over and expect different results. Therein lies the program founded by UPenn students, where YES students definition of madness. We have to convince our deans, our were in the field, influenced WCU students to begin a superintendents, our colleagues to produce and be student-run chapter on campus. In return, YES/UEF educator-organizers. We have to provide rigor and also students and faculty have influenced the organization’s not be afraid to take the risks of humanly connecting and overall leadership to work toward ways to expand youth backing youth and young adult leadership. We need to voice and leadership toward greater authenticity and create programs like YES, and the UEF, and Need in Deed, participation. Other examples of the slow shift toward and poetry projects, and our other community-based mutual support and the incubating of democratic partner organizations, and others we have not dreamed of participation through RUCCAS: drafting together and that will attract change-makers (a significant number of piloting a new democratic participation curriculum for after- whom will be of the Global Majority--if not, the program is school programs, written, piloted and revised by our not working) to be part of the educational landscape. We students in collaboration with community partners; challenge ourselves to continue to be reality-based but providing space, expertise, connections or labor toward even less civil and sensible. We plan to continue to make iCAMP, toward a new center for youth development trouble with our students, our regional teacher-activist professionals, toward a social justice training network for colleagues, and youth, and back them. We are not so youth; the expansion of university organizing work of one scared to make a mess if we can remain fortified in the of our powerhouse urban organizing partners whose focus messy work of learning, all of us, democratic participation was not young adults. These were not transactional together. agreements, but results of relational connections in which all invested, unsure of the precise ends. These were the result of getting our hands dirty together. A last example, from a recent email connecting a community member to RUCCAS:

Wanted to connect the two of you kindred spirits in hopes of fostering relationship. [Name] is a school board member in Phoenixville and is looking to further her education. She's an advocate for kids, has helped write legislation, has experience in lobbying, and is an all-around all- star…I'll let y'all take it from here.

Colleges of education should be throwing parties radical teachers and our allies want to come to. Stern and

RADICAL TEACHER 116 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.519 for teaching children in urban communities. Journal of Works Cited Literacy Research, 39(4), 411-443. Lipman, P. (2013). The new political economy of urban Anderson, K. (2017, September). How America lost its education: Neoliberalism, race, and the right to the mind. The Atlantic. Retrieved from city. Taylor & Francis. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/ Mezirow, J. (1997). Transformative learning: Theory into 09/how-america-lost-its-mind/534231/ practice. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Amos, Y.T. (2011). Teacher dispositions for cultural Education, 74, 5-12. competence: How should we prepare white teacher Milner, H.R. (2006). Preservice teachers’ learning about candidates for moral responsibility? Action in Teacher cultural and racial diversity: Implications for urban Education, 33(5-6), 481-491. education. Urban Education, 41(4), 343-375. Association of American Colleges & Universities. (2018). Milner, H. R. (2010). What does teacher education have to AAC&U announce five-year strategic plan to reclaim do with teaching? Implications for diversity higher education’s civic mission of educating for studies. Journal of Teacher Education, 61(1-2), 118- democracy. Retrieved from 131. https://www.aacu.org/press/press-releases/aacu- Mosankis, D. (2017). Racial bias in PA school funding. announces-five-year-strategic-plan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbVlLri7X2A&t=5 Berkshire, J. (2017, September). Education can’t solve s poverty – So why do we keep insisting that it can?. Ritchie, S. (2012). Incubating and sustaining: How teacher Alternet. Retrieved from networks enable and support social justice https://www.alternet.org/education-cant-solve- education. Journal of Teacher Education, 63(2), 120- poverty 131. Brown, A. & Stern, M. (2016). It's 5:30. I'm exhausted. Robinson, C. J. (1983). Black Marxism: The making of the And I have to go all the way to F*%#ing Fishtown.": Black radical tradition. University of North Carolina Educator depression, activism, and finding (armed) Press. love in a hopeless (neoliberal) place. Urban Review: Sleeter, C.E. (2001). Preparing teachers for culturally Issues and Ideas in Public Education, 48, 333-354. diverse schools: Research and the overwhelming Buras, K. (2011). Race, charter schools, and conscious presence of whiteness. Journal of Teacher Education, capitalism: On the spatial politics of whiteness as 52(2), 94-106. property (and the unconscionable assault on black Stevenson, H.C. (2014). Promoting racial literacy in New Orleans). Harvard Educational Review, 81(2), schools: Differences that make a difference. New York: 296-331. Teachers College Press. Ferman, B. (2017). The Fight for America’s School Grassroots Organizing in Education. Harvard Education Press. Cambridge, Massechsetts. Notes Groff, C.A., & Peters, T. (2012). I don’t see color: The 1 impact of diverse field placements on preservice This article is based on ideas first developed for and teachers’ white racial identity development. Journal of presented at the conference of Teacher Education State Educational Psychology and Development, 2(2), 1-15. Colleges and Universities (TESCU 2017), in collaboration Keengwe, J. (2010). Fostering cross cultural competence in with Kyra Atterbury, Bernard Hall and Kathleen Riley. preservice teachers through multicultural education

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read: Helping preservice teachers acquire a mindset

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RADICAL TEACHER 117 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.519 ISSN: 1941-0832

Thin Edge of Barbwire: Pedagogical Strategies Against Borders

by Heath Schultz

THIN EDGE OF BARBWIRE. PHOTO COURTESY OF AUTHOR

RADICAL TEACHER 118 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.464

ednesday, November 9, 2016, was likely the Most students could, off the top of their head, describe the most difficult day of teaching I have experienced. time when white students threw bleach balloons at black W Like many, I went to bed late on Tuesday— students from their apartment balconies; 1 the time when election day—after watching the proof of white reactionary the Young Conservatives of Texas organized a “Catch an politics unfold in the form of state after state turning red Illegal Immigrant” game; 2 and the time when white on elaborate television graphics late into the night. On students threw glass bottles at a black student from Wednesday morning, I moved in silence as I had my apartment balconies while yelling from above: “fuck you coffee, rode the bus into campus, and walked up the five n*****.”3 Or, more generally, that the university still only flights of stairs to my office. All of the blue-voting teachers hosts four percent African-American students.4 It wouldn’t were in the hall talking in astonished whispers before class. surprise these students, then, that in just a few months the Aghast and confused, many were as heartbroken that their neo-fascist group American Vanguard would launch a would-be savior Hillary Clinton lost as they were horrified state-wide “Texas Offensive” targeting Texas universities that the uber-capitalist and crypto-fascist won. Not with with recruitment and flyering campaigns. 5 The classroom her any more than I was against him, I nodded hello while does not exist outside of the world we live in, and in this avoiding getting pulled into the conversation. By the time shadow of Trump’s election, that felt more true than ever. I class started, I had not said a word all morning and, had nothing to offer these students who feared for their despite my desire to sit in silence, I had to face the personal safety, feared for their family being torn apart, students. feared for unknown forms of racism on the horizon. This paper chronicles a creative project I developed in direct I was teaching art courses to first-year university response to this feeling of helplessness. When viewed in students at a fairly well-to-do public university in Texas. isolation, a meager response, yet I understand this small Students were diverse both racially and economically— effort as one of sustained efforts to short-circuit the some from poor and working-class backgrounds and some reproduction of racist ideologies in visual culture and the from the richest suburbs of Houston and Dallas. Several classroom. were Latinx/Chicanx students who have experienced the violence and emotional trauma of the enforcement of the border personally, something Trump promised to escalate As much as I wish it were along with reactionary xenophobic racism. I have no possible, I do not believe the recollection of my original plan for the session that day. Off classroom is a “safe space” in the script, I asked students if they wanted to talk about the sense that we can protect election. I confessed I did not know what to say or how to vulnerable students from state- facilitate our conversation but that I was happy to make space for them to process their feelings in a collective sanctioned violence or hostile racist setting. Student after student expressed astonishment at environments. the results of the election; a few expressed utter horror and fear. Two instances in particular stand out from this Situating the Wall difficult post-election Wednesday morning. In one, a young Mexican-born man spoke of his family having been broken Being located in Texas, many students were especially up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and concerned with the looming threat of Trump building a wall told us that he had not seen his father in several years as a and the corresponding escalation of racism. With this in result. Another student, a working-class Latina from El mind, I developed an idea for a project in spring 2017: as Paso, told a story of being late for a class that was held in artists, sculptors, and designers, we would build our own a large lecture hall and having no choice but to sit between wall. I figured the best way to approach Trump’s new two young white men. Over her body they discussed their presidency was collectively and unambiguously. I designed enthusiasm for Trump and how important it was that he a three-and-a-half-week unit that created a space for build his wall. This student is shy and generally quiet in students to inform themselves of the complexities of the class, so it surprised me when she ended her story by border and process their opinions and feelings through saying, “when I walk into a room of all white people, I feel dialog, collaboration, and making. I approached this project really nervous and uncomfortable.” This was a brave thing deliberately and consciously as a white arts educator who to say to her majority white peers and white teacher. believes anti-racist pedagogy is required in all fields, not Although difficult to hear, it was not these stories that just in Ethnic Studies, to combat white supremacy. As I am made November 9, 2016 particularly awful; it was the writing this in early 2018, I learn that Oscar Monge, an subtext of hopelessness that plagued all of us. It was the American Indian Studies scholar teaching at San Diego fact that I felt I had nothing to offer them; my only State University, was “found guilty of harassing” a white response to their sadness was an even bleaker view. I had student on the basis of her being white. Among other only fear that their fears, and then some, would come true. actions, the lecturer was forced to submit a report to a As much as I wish it were possible, I do not believe state investigator outlining how whiteness was a historical the classroom is a “safe space” in the sense that we can construct and how white supremacy as a political ideology 6 protect vulnerable students from state-sanctioned violence operates in our society. Imagine the difficulty of not or hostile racist environments. The students know this, too. knowing if your contract will be renewed next semester For this particular group of students, memories linger on while you are trying to explain to a state bureaucrat that campus of several racist assaults within the last few years. white supremacy is real! Monge’s story is another chapter

RADICAL TEACHER 119 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.464 in the increasingly long book of horror stories of curb the influx of immigration that would come in NAFTA’s repression, retaliation, and death threats present in the wake. Clinton’s prediction was correct: farmers could not recent cases of Steven Salaita, George Ciccariello-Maher, compete with subsidized agribusinesses like Cargill, and Lisa Durden, and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, among retailers like Walmart and Sam’s Club drove prices up and others. 7 What Monge’s still-in-progress case illustrates is put small businesses out of business, for example. It was the greater difficulty instructors of color and women have no surprise that Clinton also oversaw an increase in border in the classroom challenging white supremacy, especially controls (personnel, surveillance, geographic reach, and when the embodiment of white supremacy is directly other resources) by fifty percent. 11 As is now fairly well challenged at the personal-emotional level. White students understood, the walls constructed by the Clinton often reserve a special anger for any instructor that is not administration, along with increased patrol and surveillance a white straight male who disrupts their understanding of technologies, were implemented upon traditional paths of white supremacy. This renders those instructors especially migration in urban areas like San Diego, Nogales, vulnerable to the dangers of our contemporary political Brownsville, and El Paso. These new border security efforts climate that can include loss of job, not getting tenure, or cut off urban cross-points, forcing migrants into harsh and (the threat of) physical violence. 8 One lesson I have remote deserts of Arizona and similarly hostile learned from these stories is that white instructors, environments, resulting in the death of at least 6,000 especially men, must take responsibility for unmaking people and in 2,500 missing persons since 2000.12 white supremacy in the classroom. Many students were surprised to learn that the Democratic party has historically supported increased One lesson I have learned from surveillance on the border. For example, the majority of these stories is that white the 700 miles of wall that currently exists on the border instructors, especially men, must was the consequence of the 2006 Republican-sponsored Secure Fence Act, for which then-Senator Hillary Clinton take responsibility for unmaking voted in support. More startling is the 2.5 million people white supremacy in the classroom. Obama had deported during his presidency, more than any other president in history.13 However, students were most Histories of the Border / surprised by, and completely unaware of, the history of the Tohono O’odham Nation, whose land was split by the Building the Wall creation of the border in 1853. “Imagine a bulldozer parking in your family graveyard, turning up bones. This is I called this unit “Thin Edge of Barbwire” after Gloria our reality,” a spokesperson told Congress in 2008.14 Anzaldúa, and I will recount it below by first sharing the readings, discussions, and exercises that led up to working This historical context helped facilitate a conversation on our wall installation. In this way, this paper will formally that resisted platitudes and uninformed talking points. mimic our time spent in the classroom. Insisting on engaging with history and political policy also encouraged students to take responsibility for any We began with significant reading and discussion in ignorance they might have on a given topic, even if that order to contextualize an artistic project that could only ignorance might be the result of their environment of come in its wake. These discussions ranged greatly and infotainment. To facilitate our discussion, I wrote questions included the political history of the wall on the U.S.-Mexico that guided students in a reconstruction of the article’s border; the historical logic of the border and its important points. I broke students into groups and enforcement; the emotional toll of colonialism and assigned them one or two questions, encouraged using continual border enforcement; and creative responses to outside sources if needed, and tasked them with providing these social, political, emotional, and poetic registers. I a detailed ‘report-back’ to the class. Below is a selection of utilized this interdisciplinary approach to recognize that the questions: political struggles operate on different terrains: there is as much of an emotional content to racism as there is a What is NAFTA and how is it related to political content to the history of the border.9 immigration? How is NAFTA related to an increase in border securitization in 1994- We began this unit by reading journalist Todd Miller’s 1996, during the presidency of Bill Clinton? short essay “The Border Wall Already Exists.” 10 Miller discusses the history of the U.S.-Mexico border with What is “Operation Streamline” in regards to particular emphasis on the border wall since 1994 and the immigration and what are the consequences implementation of the North American Free Trade on migrants? Agreement (NAFTA). Miller begins his article by chronicling Bill Clinton’s legacy as the original wall builder. Clinton was How are the travel ban exercised by Trump in responsible for the first efforts to physically separate the early 2017 (preventing travelers from Libya, U.S. and Mexico, which came in the form of a chain-link Sudan, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, and fence built from old landing mats from the Vietnam and Somalia) and the existing and border wall of Persian Gulf Wars. This fence would separate Nogales, U.S.-Mexico similar in concept? How are they Sonora, in Mexico and Nogales, Arizona, in the US. With different? the expectation that NAFTA would cause adverse effects on Mexican workers, this fence was designed to preemptively

RADICAL TEACHER 120 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.464 What are the historic and continual effects of between, and the usage of both, languages. For an the border wall on the Tohono O’odham instructor, this presents an interesting challenge in the Nation? otherwise English-speaking classroom. I asked the students to do their best to translate using the tools they How do corporate surveillance companies and had available to them and consider how Anzaldúa’s private prisons/detention centers factor into culturally specific bilingual writing is important to the approaches to policing the border? How might meaning of the text. I asked them to reflect on the these companies reinforce a more moments they failed to understand. How might that failure conservative policy in regards to U.S. also be important? From the outset, I thought this would Homeland Security and a generalized increase be a good exercise for non-Spanish-speaking students of border securitization (including airports)? because it required a consideration of language as an On the surface the questions are diverse but aspect of how meaning is created. Put another way, it calls deliberately designed to encourage drawing connections attention to the hegemony of English in the university between them as we discussed each one in class. The classroom and American culture. This is especially research and discussion format allowed students to do important when discussed in relation to a history of colonial original research, discuss and develop their own opinions in imposition that Anzaldúa brings to the surface: languages a group setting, and make their own connections between as expressions of culture and culture as expressions of content and personal experiences. This strategy also resistance. Although I assigned and led a discussion on created a framework for an intersectional analysis of the Borderlands/La Frontera, as a non-Spanish-speaking border to emerge by asking students to think not only instructor (I had to try to translate everything for myself, about immigration from Mexico, but economic policies like too), I was not an expert. Although I did not anticipate or NAFTA, continual colonial violence on the lands of the expect it, many Spanish-speaking students eagerly Tohono O’odham Nation, and the xenophobia of Trump’s translated Anzaldúa for the class. Deferring to the travel ban, among others. expertise of students turned the traditional classroom hierarchy upside-down, shifting the expertise entirely away Using Miller as a baseline for some recent historical from me. In the best instances, students that identified context, I next asked students to read the first chapter of with Anzaldúa translated her writing by using their own Gloria Anzaldúa’s Chicana feminist classic Borderlands/La stories to describe the cultural context of their Chicanx Frontera. 15 Anzaldúa added both a broader historical as perspective. Unpacking the specificity of a single word well as a poetic dimension to our ongoing conversation. could lead a student to share stories of growing up in El Anzaldúa establishes a brief history of indigenous peoples Paso and how comprehending that story was important to who migrated through and/or settled in what we now call understanding Anzaldúa. In these moments, the U.S. Southwest dating back to 35,000 B.C. She comprehension wasn’t objective but contextual, narrative, describes the violence and colonialism of Hernán Cortés in and multi-generational and access to that knowledge the 16th century, and the U.S.-Mexican War and the Treaty required cross-cultural sharing within the classroom. This of Guadalupe-Hidalgo in 1848, and she eventually brings decentering of English also necessarily destabilized us into recent times describing then-contemporary whiteness and the privileged educational background that struggles of migrants (the book was written in 1987, but comes with it, if only for a moment, in a deeply meaningful her writing continues to resonate). With Anzaldúa now in way. With the help of students who understood the cultural the mix of our conversations, students were obliged to nuances of Anzaldúa, the classroom was encouraged to consider colonialism and global power as articulators of and recognize that white and/or American culture is not the enforcers of borders and to look at the violence they have culture but a culture, and an imperialist culture at that. inflicted on indigenous peoples. For example, as a class we spent a significant amount of time discussing this passage:

1,950 mile-long open wound Art at the Border dividing a pueblo, a culture running down the length of my body, It is of little surprise that many artists have engaged taking fence rods in my flesh, with the problematics of the border in their artwork. The splits me splits me approaches vary widely and offer a breadth of profound me raja me raja16 thinking in regards to the violence of the border and the role it plays in our society. Once we had a better understanding of the historical, social, and political context It is a beautifully written passage that directly of the border as described in the previous section, I associates borders with violence. A wound is evidence of a introduced students to a number of artists that grapple cut—a slicing of the landscape across an entire continent— with the border through their work. Below I will share two that lashes into a culture, a pueblo, the flesh. Anzaldúa’s projects that helped establish a conceptual grounding for language eloquently associates the violence on the students’ sculptural project of collectively building a wall. landscape with the violence on the body, the community. In general, I discussed artists’ projects that would help Reflective of her experience growing up Chicana in the students consider particular aspects of the wall they would U.S. Southwest, Anzaldúa wrote Borderlands/La Frontera in soon build. For example: how can materials be used in a a mixture of Spanish and English. When approached meaningful manner? How can the design of a wall be formally, the combination suggests that an appropriate subverted? How can the concept of a wall or border be expression of her experience requires a movement

RADICAL TEACHER 121 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.464 relocated to resonate with those who do not live in the Thin Edge of Barbwire, or: How to Build borderlands? an Anti-Wall Wall With Students One powerful example of a meaningful use of materials is Margarita Cabrera’s community-engaged As described above, my goal before beginning our project entitled Space In Between. The project has seen a collaborative project of building a wall was to provide a few different iterations, but typically Cabrera collaborates working understanding of the socio-political forms of with an immigrant community in order to create replicas of violence—and resistance to that violence—that converge on native desert plants indigenous to the U.S. Southwest. the border. From the perspective of an arts educator These sculptural desert plants are sewn together with concerned with justice, it was important to marry aesthetic border patrol uniforms and displayed in traditional Mexican and affective creative production with this politically terra cotta pots. The collaborators of this project often use informed specificity. By doing so, we made the classroom a embroidery to reflect on their own experience crossing the space that refused generalization and liberal universal border.17 Of particular interest to our class was Cabrera’s humanism (we’re all the same!) and encouraged students use of border patrol uniforms, providing a poetic and to think through the aesthetic and affective in political illustrative example of how material carries meaning. We terms. Only when students were capable of conversing discussed how the material of these uniforms works as a eloquently and with an informed specificity did I feel it was symbol of the policing of brown bodies and a broader no longer harmful to make creative work responding to symbol of enforcement of the US border securitization. As violence on the border. we know from Anzaldúa, the violence on the landscape is also violence on the body. It is the border patrol that will not allow the 1,950 mile-long wound to heal—again and again they pick the scabs. By inviting immigrant women to collaborate, converse around the table with their stories of migration, unmake border patrol uniforms and restore the landscape with an offering of native plants, Cabrera and her collaborators do not erase state violence but instead transform oppressive objects into objects of healing. These symbols are remade into that which can return to the land and no longer control the stories of the women that lived them; the plants bear the marks of their struggle and stories of their crossing. These are the stories buried in the landscape.

We also looked to Ana Teresa Fernández’s Borrando la Frontera (Erasing the Border), created in 2011, a performative action documented with photographs. In these photographs FIGURE 1: THIN EDGE OF BARBWIRE INSTALLATION.

Fernández, a Mexican-born artist, is seen on I was working with approximately 40 students a precarious ladder painting the large fence on the border between two sections of the same course. Students worked separating Playas de Tijuana from San Diego’s Border Field in groups of three totaling 14 groups. I asked students to State Park. Predictably, in another photograph, border construct a section of the wall at approximately 4’ x 2’ and patrol appears to stop her and ask questions, although she flat on the sides, which allowed us to easily assemble the is apparently able to complete her task. The result is an wall and break it down in different locations. Beyond these approximately 20-foot section of the border fence now basic specifications, I further prompted students with the painted sky blue. When viewed from a distance, the section following: of the fence disappears into the beach and sky. If this is a utopian gesture that falsely promises a gateway, it is also Based on our conversations regarding the various the creation of a harsh juxtaposition that exposes the issues borders present us with, your group will formal ugliness and political cruelty of the border wall. conceptualize and complete a sculptural response to Students and I discussed how one might subvert the borders. You should consider the meaning of formal qualities of a wall through design decisions. How materials, process, and design when developing your could a wall be designed to fail? How could altering project. Your section of the wall must be two-sided; oppressive landmarks on the border be transformed these can be mirrored or dialog with one another through creative means to become objects of possibility, of depending on your idea. Consider the following liberation? Fernández provides one possibility. questions: Will your section of the wall be subversive

RADICAL TEACHER 122 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.464 or dutiful? Porous or impenetrable? Welcoming or discussions maintained problematic understandings of unwelcoming? Poetic or didactic? Latinx culture and issues as they relate to the border. For example, early in our discussions a few students likened What does your work say/ask? Mexican immigrants to thieves “sneaking into the back How do the materials used and design contribute to door of your home.” In this instance, I intervened to the meaning of the work? challenge the students’ racialized conception of the criminal, asking them to consider how U.S. popular culture Who is the audience for this?18 creates images of the criminal as black and brown. I put Students presented sketches and written proposals to together a few slides from popular films for the next course the class before they began building, which helped to to help illustrate this point. The best way to combat this articulate their section of the wall both formally and problematic thinking, however, was to allow the readings conceptually. These presentations engaged the class in a to do what they were designed to do. In our case, Gloria new round of discussion based on their proposed designs. Anzaldúa’s historical intervention countered the students’ This allowed for further reflection and conversation, and comments entirely by illustrating how colonialism was the also offered possibilities for response. Finally, after much original act of violence. discussion and planning, the students began building. Despite moments like the above, the project is When students were finished, we collectively installed illustrative of the rich and critical conversations instructors our wall in the main thoroughfare of the art building. We can develop in classrooms outside of the fields where these assembled the 14 sociopolitical sections of the wall, conversations are more which totaled about commonly held. In my 30’ in length with case, in regard to the distinct “U.S.” and syllabus, I pushed the “Mexico” sides (see limits of what might be Figure 2 below). “acceptable” within the The completed context of an installation served, introductory art albeit on a micro- course. In my field, scale, as a many university functional wall and administrators would disallowed viewers protest that this unit to cross without veered to far from art walking all the way and design and thus around. “did not meet course objectives.” That said, As you can see this project provides in the images an example of one below, students’ strategy to flex the responses to the curriculum toward project included a social justice. There Día de Muertos altar FIGURE 2: THIN EDGE OF BARBWIRE, DETAIL. TOP IMAGES ARE MADE FROM THE are always to the 6,000 lost or PERSPECTIVE OF BEING IN MEXICO, WHILE THE CORRESPONDING BOTTOM IMAGES ARE MADE FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF BEING IN THE U.S. opportunities to work in dead in the desert, the cracks of the an ironic rock climbing syllabus and harness opportunities as they arise. In my wall with one side much easier than the other, a barbwire case, many of my colleagues (and my department head) desertscape, and a wall-sized dreamcatcher. Deviating were appalled by Trump’s election, which enabled me to from U.S. academic sculptural norms, many students exploit their liberal disgust with Trump toward a more utilized and expressed diverse aesthetic approaches like radical end. As radical educators, we’re always negotiating sign painting, graffiti, altars, and papier-mâché. Similar to the social and political demographics of our Margarita Cabrera, many students used narrative elements department/university culture as well as students’ political in their installations, with one memorable example from a sensibilities. The question is how to consistently find ways student who wrote a letter to his father whom he has not to work in the seams of the syllabus and curriculum to do seen in over a decade because his father is imprisoned in so. Mexico. This letter can only be read when one sits in a penitentiary style communication booth. In a myriad of This project was a response to the felt helplessness on ways, what students expressed above all is a sincerity both November 9, 2017, to Trump, to the continual escalation of in the formal qualities of the work and the content. violence in U.S. socio-political culture. I believe the project’s success was rooted in normalizing critical It is important to reiterate and emphasize that this discourse. We resisted treating this content an exotic field project was undertaken in a first-year art course for of study peripheral to what we ‘normally study’ in art university students. It is no surprise that the unit was not education. We took seriously different cultural without some conflict and problems. Many of our understandings and experiences of the border with

RADICAL TEACHER 123 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.464 attention to how they are defined by the asymmetrical power relations developed through history.19 I believe it is Notes a step in the right direction that recognizes there is no 1 Cody R. Permenter, “Bleach Balloons Launched at Minority anti-racist classroom unless that classroom is actively Students at University of Texas,” Huffington Post. October 4, 2012. deconstructing white supremacy and establishing possibilities for non-hegemonic knowledges to grow, gather https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/04/bleach-balloons- university-of-texas_n_1939170.html steam, and join forces. The fragility of critique in the classroom is the difficulty of sustaining that critique. 2 Nathan Berner & Wells Dunbar, “A Brief History of Student Critical pedagogy requires the reiteration and elaboration Conservatives’ ‘Catch an Illegal Immigrant Games’,” KUT Austin’s of an intersectional approach to learning that is fostered NPR Station. November 9, 2013. the next semester, the next year, the next decade. The http://kut.org/post/brief-history-student-conservatives-catch- creation of projects like the one I’ve described above must illegal-immigrant-games-update be coupled with critical practices that are integrated into 3 Cassandra Jaramillo & Mikaela Cannizzo, “UT students in racially everyday practices of the classroom. “Thin Edge of motivated assault appeal university disciplinary process,” Daily Barbwire” becomes a failure if students recall it as “that Texan. April, 14, 2016. time we talked about the border” rather than “one of the 4 Meredith Kolodner, “Black Students Are being Shut out of Top first times we talked critically about racism, power, and Public Universities,” Huffington Post. December 18, 2016. history.” https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/black-students-are-being- At the end of our unit I shared a poem by Chicana shut-out-of-top-public-colleges_us_56703e08e4b0e292150f40c4 feminist Cherríe Moraga called “The Welder.” 20 I thought 5 Calily Bien, “Anti-Muslim immigration fliers found on UT campus,” the metaphor of fusion as possibility for solidarity by way KXAN. February 13, 2017. of poetry was a good summation to our time constructing pedagogies against the border. In the final lines of http://kxan.com/2017/02/13/anti-muslim-immigration-fliers-found- Moraga’s poem, she offers this: on-ut-campus/ 6 Katherine Mangan, “Lecturer’s Critique of Whiteness Crossed the I am the welder. Line Into Harassment, State Investigation Finds,” The Chronicle of I understand the capacity of heat to change the shape Higher Education. January 7, 2018. of things. https://www.chronicle.com/article/Lecturer-s-Critique- I am suited to work of/242178?cid=wcontentgrid within the realm of sparks out of control. 7 Each of these cases has been covered at length by various news outlets. Briefly, Steven Salaita’s tenured job offer from the I am the welder. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign was rescinded by the I am taking the power Chancellor after Salaita tweeted criticisms of recent Israeli into my own hands. aggression against Palestinians. George Ciccariello-Maher has faced right-wing harassment on multiple occasions for various tweets and/or appearances on news outlets. In December 2017 he announced his resignation from Drexel University after continued death threats and lack of support from Drexel. Lisa Durden was a lecturer at Essex County College in New Jersey when she appeared on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News Program. After her defense of a Black

Lives Matter event, outrage ensued, which led her to immediate suspension and eventual non-renewal of her contract. Keeanga- Yamahtta Taylor was forced to cancel several speaking events after receiving racist, sexist, and homophobic death threats in the wake of her Commencement address at Hampshire College in which she criticized Trump and referred to him as a “racist, sexist, megalomaniac.”

8 bell hooks, Black Looks: Race and Representation, (Boston: South End Press, 1992). 167-168; Joy James, Resisting State Violence:

Radicalism, Gender, and Race in U.S. Culture, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996). 194-197. 9 Paula Ioanide, The Emotional Politics of Racism: How Feelings Trump Facts in an Era of Colorblindness, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2015).

10 Todd Miller, “The Border Wall Already Exists,” Jacobin. August 23, 2016. https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/08/border-wall-donald- trump-immigration-clinton/

11 Miller, “The Border Wall Already Exists”

12 Colin Schultz, “Nearly 6,000 Migrants Have Died Along the Mexico-U.S. Border Since 2000,” Smithsonian Magazine. October 1, 2014.

RADICAL TEACHER 124 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.464 https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/nearly-6000- 16 Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera, 2. migrants-have-died-along-mexico-us-border-2000-180952904/?no- 17 Artist’s website: ist https://www.margaritacabrera.com/portafolio/space-in-between/ 13 Serena Marshall, “Obama has Deported More People Than Any 18 Excerpt from the assignment sheet given to students. Other President,” ABC News. August 29, 2016. 19 Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Feminism Without Borders: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/obamas-deportation-policy- Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity, (Durham: Duke numbers/story?id=41715661 University Press, 2003). 203-204. 14 Miller, “The Border Wall Already Exists” 20 Cherríe Moraga & Gloria Anzaldúa (eds.), This Bridge Called My 15 Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera, (San Francisco: Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, (Albany: SUNY Press, Spinsters, 1987). 1-13. 2015) 219-220.

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Review The ABCs of Socialism by Bhaskar Sunkara

Reviewed by Adam Szetela

THE ABCS OF SOCIALISM BY BHASKAR SUNKARA. ILLUSTRATED BY PHIL WRIGGLESWORTH (VERSO, 2016)

RADICAL TEACHER 126 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.501

intellectually rigorous ways. For example, I have had more The ABCs of Socialism by Bhaskar than one student recognize that the wealth of a company is a social product and not exclusively a product of individual Sunkara. Illustrated by Phil genius and the “entrepreneurial spirit.” Indeed, many of Wrigglesworth (Verso, 2016) the questions in this book — “But at least capitalism is free and democratic, right?” — rebuke much of what passes as REVIEWED BY ADAM SZETELA accepted political and economic orthodoxy in capitalist countries.

In 2010, Bhaskar Sunkara started the socialist Even if this book were not used in a course, I think it magazine Jacobin, while he was an undergraduate at would be of pedagogical benefit for radical teachers to George Washington University. Since then, it has evolved read. At one level, it gives thorough responses to some of into an international force with millions of readers, the most asked questions about socialism, which any hundreds of reading groups, and an MVP-list of writers and teacher who teaches radical political and economic material supporters, who range from Noam Chomsky and the late will surely encounter. These questions range from inquiries Ellen Meiksins Wood to Dave Zirin and Chris Mathews. about the role of individual rights in a socialist society to Jacobin’s emergence has also spawned a flood of email the perennial fear that, in the absence of the profit motive, messages from people around the world who are asking socialism will stifle innovation. In addition, the accessibility questions about socialism. In response, Sunkara recruited of the text will show many educators, especially those in some of the leading voices on the left to write an the jargon-filled world of academia, how to express these introductory book. The result is The ABC’s of Socialism. core concepts in simple ways, without sacrificing intellectual rigor. As someone who has observed other The organization of the book is especially useful from a radical professors teach, I am always astounded by how pedagogical standpoint. Each chapter is titled as a question teachers overcomplicate concepts, like “primitive — “Why do socialists talk so much about workers?” “Aren’t accumulation” and “surplus value,” for their students. The socialism and feminism sometimes in conflict?” “Isn’t simple definitional explanations in ABC’s — such as the America already kind of socialist?” — and the response to distinction between “private property” and “personal the question is written by a different scholar. From property,” or “positive freedom” and “negative freedom” — Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor to Erik Olin Wright, the authors will give radical teachers a useful vocabulary to help them selected are noted radical intellectuals. They are also elaborate ideas central to socialism, in ways that are figures with track records writing not just for peer- meaningful to younger people, and accessible enough for reviewed publications and academic presses, but venues these students to retain and to use in future conversations. such as The Nation, The New York Times, and Socialist Worker. Consequently, the book is accessible and free of Though I teach at Berklee College of Music where my obscure neologisms and flamboyant rhetorical gestures. students are more open-minded and progressive, not every Moreover, while many of Jacobin’s articles are written as book I have used has been well received. ABC’s, however, polemics for readers already sympathetic to socialist ideas, has always been a hit. When I ask my students to reflect ABC’s is written in a tone that invites uninitiated readers to on the unit that I construct around this text, typical think about capitalism and socialism in nuanced and critical responses include “I had no idea capitalism was this ways. Most notably, the book recognizes the redeemable undemocratic” and “I learned that the Soviet Union was aspects of capitalism as well as the intersections between not a socialist state.” This latter comment speaks to one of these economic systems and forms of social oppression — the highest values of ABC’s, which is its ability to such as racism and sexism. deconstruct the popular “evil empire” image of socialism that still lingers in America’s political imagination. As For those of us who teach about socialism, this text is movements like Occupy Wall Street and the Sanders particularly useful, and there are a few different ways that campaign linger in the background, with hopes of I have incorporated the book into my undergraduate reemerging as political forces in the future, the distinctions courses. First, I have assigned chapters to groups to between socialism today and “socialism” in the past will be present on during my unit on socialism. I listen to their as important as ever. For these reasons and others, I presentations, and I fill in the blanks when they finish. recommend The ABC’s of Socialism without reservation to Second, I have had students use their journals to reflect on other radical teachers. a question, such as “Don’t the rich deserve to keep all their money?”, which is the title of chapter three, before we read the chapter. More often than not, the chapter and the ensuing discussion push students to reflect on their taken- for-granted axioms of capitalism in novel and more

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This journal is published by the University Library System of the University of Pittsburgh as part of its D-Scribe Digital Publishing Program, and is cosponsored by the University of Pittsburgh Press.

RADICAL TEACHER 127 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.501 ISSN: 1941-0832

Review Direct Action: Protest and the Reinvention of American Radicalism by L.A. Kauffman

Reviewed by George Lakey

DIRECT ACTION: PROTEST AND THE REINVENTION OF AMERICAN RADICALISM BY L.A. KAUFFMAN (VERSO, 2017)

RADICAL TEACHER 128 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.520

from expressing themselves. “The new movements,” Direct Action: Protest and the Kauffman writes, “rejected hierarchical organizational structures, traditional leadership models, and rigid Reinvention of American Radicalism by ideologies, and they sought forms of activism and political L.A. Kauffman (Verso, 2017) engagement that could preserve rather than subsume difference and multiplicity. Women, especially queer REVIEWED BY GEORGE LAKEY women, played crucial roles in this process of political reinvention, infusing this new radicalism with feminist practices and values through the very process of In this book journalist and activist L.A. Kauffman movement-building.” describes changes in American radical activism from 1971 to 2014. The author focuses on tactics, organizational The book, however, has a different view from mine of forms, and culture. In all three of those areas, the author the outcome. The author says in the introduction, “This is shows us how alive to innovation radicals have been. Even a story about dealing with defeat and marginalization.” My though revolutionary aspirations didn’t come to pass in the disagreement has to do with the author’s restricted lens. big picture, the changes in activist consciousness and Kauffman is fascinated with tactics, organizational forms, means of struggle continue to play out in today’s era of and activist culture but not with strategy. I like the Trump. strategy level as well – the interaction between a movement’s goals and the opponent’s effort to prevent the In this review I will describe some of the book’s movement’s success. I’m especially interested in how contributions to understanding the movement’s innovations movements do or don’t learn from their own experience, of process as well as product, notably its increasingly changing their strategy (as well as organizational and egalitarian tactics and organizational models and increasing cultural practices) in order to win. leadership by women and queer organizers. I will then use my own work on intentional learning to propose deeper Kauffman doesn’t help us see whether activists gained analysis on the level of movement strategy (especially victories from 1971 to 2014. Here is just a partial list of after 1980 when Ronald Reagan became President), and victories for nonviolent direct action campaigns, indicating argue that the book reflects radicals’ own frequent neglect strategic learning that was going on among activists from of intentional reflection from experience as a way to their experience. heighten the learning curve that successful movements need. (1) The U.S. government lost the base it needed to Kauffman begins in Washington, D.C. in 1971 with the continue to wage the war in Vietnam, despite strategic dramatic tactics used by “Mayday,” an anti-Vietnam war mistakes made by the anti-war movement that were protest in which protesters warned either the government corrected in later campaigns. would stop the war or the protesters would stop the government. The author takes us through several decades (2) The U.S. support of apartheid was sufficiently of confrontations that included tactical innovation – damaged, simultaneous with parallel undermining in sanctuary in churches for Central American refugees, other countries, to precipitate change in South Africa. blockades of nuclear plant construction sites, and Occupy The U.S. movement’s biggest strategic learning was to Wall Street. make the issue local, primarily through targeted divestment and boycott campaigns. Kauffman also shows us organizational experimentation that reflects anti-authoritarian values. (3) The U.S. was prevented from invading Central The reader gets to see, for example, how differently America to prop up client dictatorships there. One of decision-making was done in the anti-nuclear blockades the movement’s strategic lessons was how to increase and Occupy, than was the mode in the sixties civil rights the personal stake and fervor of Americans through movement as shown by the award-winning film Selma. the sanctuary tactic, and to enroll a Catholic The seventies demonstrators often formed affinity groups constituency. (5-20 people acting as units) who not only looked out for (4) The medical industry and government were forced each other but participated in decision-making by sending to intervene effectively in the AIDS crisis. ACT-UP their spokesperson to a “spokes council” that made avoided much of the time and energy wasting of decisions for the entire action. previous movements (rallies and marches, for That attention to process was both a reflection of the example) by going directly into tactics of disruption. increasingly egalitarian culture of the demonstrators and in (5) The U.S. nuclear industry’s goal of 1000 plants was turn gave space for further assertion of equality. Kauffman defeated by the grassroots movement, leaving the shows us how identity politics became increasingly industry and its powerful allies only a fraction of that confrontational with reluctant white, or heterosexual, or number. male activists forced to adopt more egalitarian practices. (6) A substantial part of the U.S. apparel industry was Supported by photos and graphics from the period, forced to accept a code of conduct by the student Kauffman’s vivid story-telling assists the reader to get the sweatshop movement. flavor of what was going on in the decades when even Ronald Reagan’s presidency couldn’t stop American radicals

RADICAL TEACHER 129 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.520 Both (5) and (6) learned to use a strategy of workshops. MNS trainers were struck by how much more simultaneous local campaigns with local targets while people learn when they set goals for themselves. Of confronting the national power structure. The various course teachers like to urge students to reflect and assess, campaigns focused on learning from each other’s because reflection makes empowerment possible. strengths and mistakes. Campaigns have goals, which is why campaigns support a learning curve, whereas one-off protests teach little. (7) The fast-food industry was forced to pay more for Individual activists are far more empowered by direct vegetables so farm workers could gain higher wages, action campaigns than by disconnected protests. by the Immokalee Workers, a student-farm worker coalition using direct action including boycotts. After MNS was discontinued Barbara Smith, an African American community organizer in Philadelphia, and I

founded Training for Change to pick up the thread of Kauffman is right to observe overall losses for radicals intentional learning for activists. We deepened our use of and liberals in the period 1971-2014, but the author’s lack group dynamics, experiential exploration of cultural and of a macro-view distorts the real picture. Movements other differences, and conflict tools. We forged a continued to win in the U.S. through the 1970s, but then pedagogy that crosses cultural lines and increases the counter-revolution launched by the economic elite in empowerment, and called the pedagogy “direct education,” 1980 through the Reagan presidency reversed the overall a more intense form of popular education that uses the rate of wins in later years. Most movements went on the power of the learning group as a resource.2 defensive, struggling to hold on to previously won gains, When Canada’s most radical trade union asked me to instead of campaigning for new and even more progressive revamp its popular education-based leadership goals. Military generals agree with Gandhi that going on development program, I turned to direct education. After the defensive is a fundamental strategic error. Notably, initial resistance, the union’s worker educators found the the LGBT movement rejected the defensive posture pedagogy more in tune with the politics and direct action embraced by labor, women, civil rights, educational strategies of the union itself. Training for Change has by reformers, and alone continued – dramatically – to move now taught direct education to movement facilitators in strongly forward. over 30 countries, although its main emphasis remains the Devoted as we radical teachers are to learning, we’re U.S. Its mission is to heighten the activist learning curve, bound to ask whether radicals can accelerate their learning so movements can learn to win more often and transform by becoming more intentional about it. their societies.

In 1971, also the beginning of Kauffman’s story, I co- founded a network of revolutionaries called Movement for a

New Society (MNS).1 To reduce the dogmatism that often diminishes the learning curve of radicals, we adopted this slogan: “Most of what we need to know to build a new society, we have yet to learn.” Digging into Paolo Freire, we embarked on a couple of decades of action/reflection. Our learning accelerated, not Notes only in relation to sexism, racism, heterosexism and 1 classism, but also in how to develop vision and strategy for MNS was laid down in 1988. Activist-scholar Andrew change. Cornell describes the group in his 2011 book published by AK Press, Oppose and Propose: Lessons from Movement The MNS intention to learn came from how much we for a New Society. wanted to win. Each direct action had objectives, so assessment produced learning. We also evaluated a series 2 George Lakey, Facilitating Group Learning: Strategies for of actions in light of the strategic course we’d set to reach Success with Adult Learners, 2010, San Francisco: Jossey- broader goals. Our experiments with anti-authoritarian Bass. practices went “big-time”” through the anti-nuclear campaigns -- affinity groups, spokes councils, and the like – and continued to spread through intensive MNS

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

This journal is published by the University Library System of the University of Pittsburgh as part of its D-Scribe Digital Publishing Program, and is cosponsored by the University of Pittsburgh Press.

RADICAL TEACHER 130 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.520 ISSN: 1941-0832

Teaching Note Podcasts in an Alternative High School

by Jack Murphy

PHOTO BY NEONBRAND

RADICAL TEACHER 131 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.511

he students of my writing class are often surprised assignments and projects, become rejuvenated as in- and delighted to find that their final project will not demand experts offering help to their fellow classmates T involve another paper. After five months of personal and teacher. narratives, profiles, short stories, and poems (plus daily This to me is an ideal use of technology, as it writing practice and prompts), the process has facilitates working and planning together in the real world understandably started to grow a bit tiresome. Instead, (with students using their smartphones to make field they are challenged to use the skills and concepts we have recordings and conduct interviews), as opposed to the honed over the course of the semester to create an audio prevalent and very negative classroom tech tools which product— a podcast. suck individuals into a screen. This also makes explicit the Podcasts have proliferated at a rapid pace over the last collaborative nature of creation, essentially hidden in the decade, in large part due to the unprecedented professional context and maybe even nonexistent in accessibility of the tools required to create them and the classrooms, as students very often are set to work on an networks necessary to distribute them. Soundcloud and individual writing assignment or, worse, a quiz or test. iTunes are now stocked to the brim with professional and Students see very clearly that while the narrator is the amateur podcasts covering an absolutely endless variety of most featured in the finished product, there would not be a topics, and the most popular among these programs boast finished product without the producers who conducted the hundreds of thousands of loyal listeners. The biggest shows interviews, the writers who wrote the intro and conclusion, of 2017, Serial, S-Town, and This American Life, count or the editor who spliced together all the different audio their downloads in the tens of millions. In the case of my files. Often, each student has a hand in all aspects of classroom, however, it is not the medium’s capacity for production. mega-popularity that makes it an appealing and powerful While students are frequently dismayed at hearing the project; in fact, it is the capacity for smallness, the intense theme, perhaps fairly assuming they will be forced to intimacy, that makes it special. create a sanitized infomercial for the school, they quickly The students in my classes are aged 16 to 21 and all find that almost any element of their life can be are returning to school seeking a high school degree after incorporated into their segment. On the one hand, typical dropping out of Chicago Public Schools. Of the 200 topics embody what Noam Chomsky calls the essence of students enrolled, 90% are African-American or Hispanic, discovery, that being the practice of “puzzling over simple 18% are considered homeless, and 100% qualify for free things.” These simple things in the past have meant lunch. While each student takes their own path to us, interviewing every student who goes to school with a there are some extremely common challenges: many have sibling and exploring the implications of that situation; a child of their own to take care of, most have a full-time inquiring into the various living situations of classmates, job outside of school, and some have gotten caught up in teachers, and administrators and comparing the troubles the criminal justice system. For these reasons, poor and joys therein; and investigating how various students attendance and tardiness are rampant— it’s not uncommon spend their lunch period, which at our school includes “off- for a student to stumble in several hours late having gotten campus” privileges. These segments often lead to the home from bussing tables the night before well past development of a natural solidarity among students, as midnight or else to disappear altogether after several they discover the similar struggles, successes, fears, and weeks of excellent work. dreams heretofore hidden beneath the social networks they ordinarily relate by. We base our podcast on This American Life, where each week various stories are presented around a common On the other hand, topics of a more socially conscious theme. The theme in our case is simply “Truman Middle sort are also common. This typically begins with the desire College,” the name of our school, and students in groups to challenge school officials on policies ranging from tardies are free to choose any topic that can be connected even and uniforms to their relationship with the school security tenuously. In a five-minute segment, then, incorporating guards. The dean and principal have many times been an intro and outro, interviews with at least three people interviewed and taken to task on what students consider to outside their group, and background music and sound be unfair practices. Beyond that, students have pushed effects, each group contributes one story to our show. back on the narrative they know exists on what it means to be a student at an alternative high school. Our school is While few students in my experience have arrived as housed within a community college and one group fans of podcasts, the tools required to create them are approached the many college students and professors in often very much a part of their lives. The easiest program the building and questioned their perceptions of the high is GarageBand, which comes standard on all MacBooks and school “dropouts” they share space with. These segments iOS devices. Rarely have I been able to provide this are deeply inspiring, as the students are manifestly not a program, but there are free, web-based tools which work part of a robust democratic institution— the adults in the nearly as well, the best being Audacity. All programs are building have almost complete control over their lives, and simple enough that the necessary production elements can it goes without saying that school officials and policies are be taught in 30 minutes. Indeed, I often have students, not subject to any kind of referendum or student consent aspiring rappers in their free time, who have already whatsoever. To ask difficult questions of these people will mastered the programs and production techniques; this hopefully contribute skills and confidence to challenge leads to the happy circumstance where these students, students’ nominally accountable representatives, including often (but not always) disengaged throughout earlier Rahm Emanuel and Donald Trump. At the very least, it

RADICAL TEACHER 132 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.511 installs the expectation that powerful people ought to capturing a wide-range of emotions, sounds, and voices in answer for the policies they espouse. what will be remembered as a truly calamitous and truly vibrant time to be a young Chicagoan. The podcast project typically inspires some of the best, most exciting work my students produce all semester. And while the finished product bears little superficial resemblance to more traditional writing assignments we’ve explored, this project truly does utilize the concepts we have studied over the course of the semester (among these, interviewing, storytelling, figurative language, showing and not telling) and applies them in a fresh context in service of an authentic product. Beyond this, the podcasts over time stand as a historical document,

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

This journal is published by the University Library System of the University of Pittsburgh as part of its D-Scribe Digital Publishing Program, and is cosponsored by the University of Pittsburgh Press.

RADICAL TEACHER 133 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.511 ISSN: 1941-0832

Teaching Note How to Subvert Your University’s Canned Curriculum

by Jennifer J. Young

PHOTO BY TIM GOUW

RADICAL TEACHER 134 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.523

Caveats and Troubleshoots: How to Subvert Your University’s Canned 1. Even though you’re not following it, you must be Curriculum* intimately familiar with the standardized curriculum, because you still need to teach the 1. Never, EVER voice your intention to subvert. same information; you’ll just be able to teach it If you ask up front, the answer will be “No,” more effectively and meaningfully, because you’ll and then if you get busted you’re done. If actually like what you’re doing. (This is the true you don’t ask and get caught, you can still idiocy of canned curriculum: It’s not only boring to probably feign confusion (although you won’t learn, but boring to teach, and students can smell be able to pull this off twice, so follow these teacher boredom like a cadaver dog smells a dead tips and don’t get caught). body [standardized curriculum is, by definition, a 2. Include the standardized syllabus you’re expected dead body; it’s dead before you even get it].) to teach in your learning management system or 2. Find out what the “assessment artifact” for the course website. This is important, because course is. You’ll need to work that into your real someone may access it for assessment purposes syllabus, but it’s probably only one assignment, (nobody ever actually assesses anything 1 ; and at least it won’t hijack the entire course. Be assessment is mostly an exercise in box-checking sure to have students submit that one assignment and ass-covering, so you don’t need to worry that to whatever system is used for assessment someone is going to confirm that you’ve posted gathering. the standardized syllabus and THEN go on a deep- dive-dig through the rest of your online resources 3. If you have that rare student who doesn’t and to unearth your Real Syllabus; this won’t happen). won’t use social networks, then you’ll have to individually e-mail things to that student. Just do 3. Never tell students where the standardized it. It’s a pain, but it’s not as bad as teaching from syllabus is. You must locate it somewhere that a standardized syllabus. doesn’t require a lot of scrolling for someone in an official capacity to find, but if you never reference 4. This is the most important point, and your it, follow it, or show students where it is, they will subversion success hinges on your ability to probably not know that it ever exists. If any of achieve this goal: You must teach well. You must your students do find it and reference it, say this: be a strong and dynamic and well-liked teacher. “That’s a standardized syllabus template that I’m You must be confident in both your content required to post in the system, but I use my own knowledge and in your ability to establish rapport syllabus, which is the one I sent you.” Any with students. If your students are happy and student who questions this is super-intelligent. performing (i.e. you get good evaluations and Super-intelligent people are, by definition, your students aren’t complaining about you), opposed to canned curriculum, because canned nobody wastes time going on a reconnaissance curriculum is stupid. So, the vast majority of your mission to figure out what you’re doing; they just students won’t question your subversion, and the leave you alone. ones sharp enough to detect it will be on your side *I only promote this practice because I know that it works, anyway. Bases covered. and because I know that it’s good for students. I’ve used 4. Create your real syllabus as a PDF or info-graphic it myself when I’ve taught for institutions that are short- --- something visually appealing and stable; don’t sighted enough to require using canned curriculum, and use a Word document. I’ve never heard a word about it from anyone. My students still learned what they needed to know, but they 5. Start a Facebook, Twitter, and/or Instagram actually enjoyed and found value in it. I got strong account(s) that you use only for your course, and evaluations, and my students produced work that disseminate your real syllabus via these networks. evidenced their growth. Real teaching is about connection Post all assignments, updates, etc. to these sites. and creativity, teachers aren’t delivery-robots, and there’s 6. By Week 2 of the semester, your students will be no one-size-fits-all in anything. Higher education en masse well-accustomed to this set-up, and they’ll never may or may not eventually figure this out, but until that even look for the standardized syllabus. happens, it’s our job as professors to employ a little subversion to do what’s best for our students.

Notes

1https://www.chronicle.com/article/An-Insider-s-Take-on/242235

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

This journal is published by the University Library System of the University of Pittsburgh as part of its D-Scribe Digital Publishing Program, and is cosponsored by the University of Pittsburgh Press.

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Contributors’ Notes

MILWAUKEE PUBLIC SCHOOLS TEACHER DEMONSTRATION APRIL 24, 2018. PHOTO BY CHARLES EDWARD MILLER

RADICAL TEACHER 136 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.532

Hannah Ashley earned her Ph.D. from Temple University Audrey Fisch is Professor of English at New Jersey City in Interdisciplinary Urban Education; she has published in University, where she has taught in both the English and numerous collections and journals, including the Journal of Elementary and Secondary Education Departments for Basic Writing, Pedagogy, Research in the Teaching of more than twenty years. Her books include American English, and Reflections on Community-Based Writing Slaves in Victorian England, The African American Slave Instruction and is a past co-chair for the National Narrative, and The Other Mary Shelley. She has also Conference on Basic Writing. In addition to teaching written extensively about pedagogy, including the series, courses focusing on urban community change, critical Using Informational Text (Rowman), co-authored with pedagogy, community-engaged writing, and literacy, she Susan Chenelle. Audrey currently serves as president of cofounded and is currently the director for the Youth the New Jersey Council of Teachers of English. Empowerment and Urban Studies (YES) program at WCU, which is housed in the Rustin Urban Community Change Axis. She likes to make a ruckus with her partner, four Jennifer Hernandez lives in Minnesota where she teaches children and other work- and playmates in Philadelphia and middle school EL and writes poetry, flash, and creative Wilmington. non-fiction. Much of her recent writing has been colored by her distress at the dangerous nonsense that appears in her

daily news feed. She is marching with her pen. Recent Andy Beutel has been teaching middle school social work appears in New Verse News, Rise Up Review and studies for over ten years. He has presented and written Writers Resist. about the challenges and possibilities of critical pedagogy and teaching for social justice in an affluent, suburban public school setting. Tristan Josephson is an assistant professor in the Department of Women's Studies at California State

University, Sacramento. His research interests include Travis Boyce is an Associate Professor of Africana Studies trans studies and politics, critical legal studies, and queer at the University of Northern Colorado. His research theory. He is currently working on a project that maps the interests are in African-American history and popular incorporation of the category of 'transgender' in U.S. culture. He is the co-editor of Historicizing Fear (in press immigration law and policy. with the University Press of Colorado).

Alexandra Juhasz is Chair of the Film Department, Ann J. Cahill is Professor of Philosophy at Elon University, Brooklyn College. She makes and studies committed media Elon, North Carolina. Her scholarship is often situated at practices that contribute to political change and individual the intersection of feminist philosophy and philosophy of and community growth. the body, where she develops new analyses of common concepts, such as sexual violence or objectification. A. Susan Jurow is an Associate Professor of Education at

University of Colorado Boulder. She studies and designs for DJ Cashmere is a descendant of working-class Catholic equity- oriented learning with and for community partners. and Jewish immigrants from across Europe. He taught in public and public charter schools in Chicago from 2009- 2017. He is currently a freelance print and audio journalist Erika Kitzmiller is a lecturer in the Program in Social and a John K. Martin Fellow at NYU's Carter Journalism Studies at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her Institute. research examines the historical processes and current reform efforts that have contributed to and challenged

inequality. Her book manuscript, The Roots of Educational Sarah Chinn teaches in and is chair of the English Inequality, traces the transformation of public secondary department at Hunter College, CUNY. She has published education in urban America over the course of the widely on a variety of issues from transgender Title VII twentieth century cases to food justice to the U.S./Mexico war. Her most recent book is Spectacular Men: Race, Gender, and Nation on the Early American Stage (2017). George Lakey: First arrested in a civil rights sit-in, George Lakey co-authored a handbook for the civil rights

movement, “A Manual for Direct Action.” He led over 1500 workshops on five continents and taught at the Martin Luther King School of Social Change, as well as initiated Joseph Entin teaches at Brooklyn College, CUNY. He has direct action campaigns. A sociologist, he recently retired been on the Radical Teachereditorial board since 1997. His from Swarthmore College where he founded the Global most recent book, co-edited with Sara Blair and Franny Nonviolent Action Database, an accessible web-based Nudelman, is Remaking Reality: U.S. Documentary Culture searchable database of over 1100 direct action campaigns after 1945 (2018). in almost 200 countries. His latest book is, “Viking Economics: How the Scandinavians got it right and how we

RADICAL TEACHER 137 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.532 can, too,” (Melville House, 2016). He is currently working writing has been published in the Journal of Artistic on a new manual for direct action for the current context. Research, Parallax, and the Journal of Aesthetics and Protest, in addition to various DIY publications. His work

has been shown at venues including New Zealand Film Fred Marchant’s new collection of poetry, Said Not Said, Archive, Auckland, New Zealand; Visual Arts Center, was published by Graywolf Press in May 2017. He is also Austin; Experimental Response Cinema, Austin; and Plains the author of Tipping Point, Full Moon Boat, House on Art Museum, Fargo, ND. He is an assistant professor of art Water, House in Air, and The Looking House. He has co- at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. You can translated, with Nguyen Ba Chung, From a Corner of My view his work at heathschultz.com. Yard, by Tran Dang Khoa, and Con Dau Prison Songs, by

Vo Que, both books published in Hanoi. He is the editor of Another World Instead: The Early Poems of William Jesse W. Schwartz is an assistant professor of English at Stafford, and an Emeritus Professor of English and LaGuardia Community College, CUNY, and his interests founding director of the Suffolk University Poetry Center in include radical American literature, periodical studies, Boston. Marxian theory, critical race and ethnic studies, and Russian-American cultural relations. His current project

traces the literary and political responses to American Tom Mould is Professor of Folklore and Anthropology at socialism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth Elon University. He is the author of two books on Choctaw centuries, with a particular focus on representations of the Indian oral traditions and another on Latter-day Saint Russian Revolution in US print cultures. stories of personal revelation. His current project examines the impact legends and personal experience narratives about welfare have on shaping public opinion and policy. Katie Solic earned her Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville in Teacher Education with a

concentration in Literacy Studies. She co-founded and Jack Murphy is a high school English teacher in Chicago. currently co-directs the WCU Undergraduate Urban Education Fellowship, which is a member program in the

Rustin Urban Community Change Axis. Her research Emily Claire Price is a Ph.D. candidate, instructor, and focuses on supporting the needs and interests of diverse research assistant in the School of Education at the literacy learners and preparing the professionals who teach University of Colorado. Her work focuses on the role of them; her recent work has appeared in the Journal of emotion in equity-oriented teaching and learning. Teacher Education.

Clelia O. Rodríguez is an educator, born and raised in El Chris Steele: MA in History & Politics. Frequent Salvador, Central America. She earned her MA and PhD contributor to Truthout. Research interests involve social from the University of Toronto. Professor Rodríguez has movements, surveillance, education, and music. Steele has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in Spanish published chapters and articles with Noam Chomsky and is language, literature and culture at the University of also known as the hip-hop artist Time who has worked and Toronto, Washington College, the University of Ghana, the performed with Common, Talib Kweli, Kool Keith, and Ron University of Michigan, and Western University most Miles. recently. She was a Human Rights Professor in the United

States, Nepal, Jordan, and Chile. She is committed to critical pedagogical approaches in learning utilizing an Adam Szetela is an Assistant Professor in the Liberal Arts intersectional framework. She has published in RaceBaitR, Department at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA. Postcolonial Studies, Revista Iberoamericana, Women &

Environments. Her forthcoming book Decolonizing Academia: Poverty, Oppression and Pain will be published Jennifer J. Young is Director of the First Year Writing by Fernwood Publishing. program at the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay, and an Assistant Professor of English.

Heath Schultz is a research-based artist and writer. His work addresses questions of institutional critique, activism, contemporary politics, and the political efficacy of art. His

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RADICAL TEACHER 138 http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu No. 111 (Summer 2018) DOI 10.5195/rt.2018.532